Gravesong: Requiem
by CareOtters
Summary: In order to become the Master of Death, Harry Potter must first master the dead.
1. Chapter 1

I won't burden you all with a huge note here, but I have to say this: many thanks to everyone at DLP, particularly my awesome beta, IdSayWhyNot. Go ogle his fic, 'A Clock on the Face of Hell', if you're looking for something to read.

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* * *

The kettle let out a shrill whine in the kitchen.

In the living room, Harry sighed and glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. The slender metal hands claimed that it was mere minutes short of six in the morning. He grimaced, putting a hand on each arm of the chair, and pushed himself up.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror above the fireplace. His face was smooth, unblemished, if a little pale, and looked like that of a man in the prime of his life, brimming with good health. The intermittent speckles of white and grey were the only sign of his real age.

Harry walked over to the mirror and touched the only wound he'd never been truly able to heal from; a thin, jagged bolt of red lightning on his forehead. He stared at it for a while, lost in memories. Without realizing, he picked up a thick homemade card that had lain hidden behind the clock.

In the centre of the card a pair of smiling faces beamed up at him, waving and laughing silently. The elder of the two, a stunning woman, lifted the other, a girl of about five, and threw her in the air, catching her before she could fall. Harry watched them laugh, longing to hear the laughter that he could see, just once more.

With an elegant, cursive hand, the words _Happy Birthday Daddy_ glittered in green and silver ink. Just below them, in bright blue, was printed the name _Katie_ with the painstaking care of a child only just learning to write.

Harry wiped a few traces of dust off the card, smiling sadly. It was old, and saved from falling apart only by magic. He frowned as he noticed a tiny rip in one corner. Placing his thumb and forefinger over the slight tear, Harry fully covered it and muttered a word under his breath.

Golden light spilled out from under his hand; he pulled it away to check that the magic had worked. Seeing that it had, and that the card had knitted together, leaving no sign of imperfection, he put it back in its hiding place, behind the clock, where nobody but him would ever see it.

Sighing, he made his way to the kitchen and lifted the kettle from the top of the stove where he'd left it to heat. The stove was broken, so he'd conjured a lilywhite ball of fire to heat the kettle. He wrapped the fire in a subtle sphere of magic and tossed it like a ball into the living room's hearth. The magic shattered like glass as it impacted against red bricks behind the fire, and the lilywhite flames melted away into the hearth. The fire that had already been burning there rose a little higher, burned a little hotter.

His movements were slow and sluggish as he made himself a large mug of strong coffee. He needed it. He was exhausted.

All night he'd been wishing that he could sleep, but that wasn't an option. As much as he yearned for rest, he needed much more to stay awake, and wait. The call should be coming in a few hours. He yawned widely and took a gulp of hot coffee. It stung his tongue and throat going down, but that only helped kick him awake – a kick much needed.

He rubbed his eyes blearily and topped up the mug before heading back through into the living room.

The fire roared with a pleasant heat which spread throughout the room, making Harry feel drowsier than he already was. He stretched out on the couch, using an armrest as a pillow, and fought to keep his eyes open.

Over the course of hours one mug became five, and eventually Harry ran out of coffee. He sat there, grumbling under his breath, and absentmindedly fingering a plain silver bracelet from which three charms hung; a wand, a ring and a cloak.

As his fingers brushed the charm shaped like a cloak, it began to emit a soft silver light. The light caught Harry's attention.

He whipped his hand away as if stung by an insect.

This was dangerous territory. He could feel the ebb and flow of magic in and around those three charms; a requiem that called to him, enthralling like a siren perched on treacherous rocks, her soft, lulling song a call to doomed sailors.

Harry closed his eyes and attempted to block out his magical senses, shutting them down one by one. He felt a strange sense of loss as his awareness of the life around him faded into nothing. The birds roosting in trees outside suddenly vanished from his mind, as did the hundreds of insects hidden among the foliage. There were no insects within the house. Even they had enough intelligence to stay away; the primal, raw intelligence of basic survival instincts.

He focused on taking slow, steady breaths and listened to the rhythmic beating of his heart, blocking out all thought.

Time passed.

"-tter. Mr Potter? Sir? Mr Potter? "

Harry stirred.

"Mr Potter?"

He blinked, opened his eyes and stretched.

Harry could feel the pulsing of life nearby with his ethereal senses, but it was odd, twisted, somehow, as if it was only half there. He frowned, trying to remember what that odd sensation meant. He knew that he'd felt it before.

"Mr Potter?"

At last, Harry took notice of what he'd been hearing for the past minute. He sat up with a jerk, and saw the head of a young woman bobbing nervously among green flames.

"Yes?" he asked, slurring his words as his stiff body and mind protested at being roused. The woman steeled her face into a polite expression, chewing on her lower lip a little. Harry grimaced at the sight of fear, even in such a small sign, and she jerked backwards quickly.

"Erm..."

Harry sighed.

"Spit it out, girl. I'm not going to hurt you," he said, a tone of disgust creeping into his voice.  
She shuddered, and pulled herself together. "Good morning, sir. I'm Healer Wentson from St Mungo's. I'm very sorry to disturb you this early, but you're the only one on the list of Mr. Nick Browning's contacts and family members, and –"

"Yes, yes, I know. I'm familiar with hospital policy," interrupted Harry, waving a hand dismissively. "How is he?"

She looked downwards, seemingly into the burning logs that her face hung above of, and stuttered in embarrassment.

"The – the organ regeneration was a success, and the magical contamination from the healing ritual was kept to a minimum," she said. "We're still monitoring his progress, and the current prognosis is favourable. " As she spoke the fear in her voice dissipated, replaced by a professional tone; discussing simple medical facts was familiar grounds for her. "The series of lacerations on his upper torso have been fully healed, with minor scarring. The scars will be visible, but won't hamper his everyday lifestyle, or even vigorous exercise, unless he exerts himself far more than he should, at his age."

"My age, too," said Harry. The young woman flushed.

"I'm afraid that the burns on his face will remain, due to the dark nature of the curse. Our curse expert, Healer Basil, was able to counter the cursed fire that he was attacked with before it did too much damage."

The detailed list of Nick's injuries brought back the images that Harry had been pushing out of his mind since he had seen them. He remembered the smell of charred skin and hair, and the thick puddle of blood spreading on the floor. The assailant, a psychotic young man who the Aurors were still looking for, had been standing over the broken body of his friend when he'd arrived, a look of utter panic on his face as he realized he'd been spotted.

The look of panic on the assailant's face had wrenched into one of horror when he'd realized that it was Harry who had caught him.

Seeing that the young Healer was watching him expectantly, Harry gave a cursory nod of satisfaction at her report.

"Very well," he said. "When can I see him?" The Healer opened her mouth, but Harry raised a hand in warning, a threatening note coming into his voice. "Don't even think of talking to me about visiting hours, or the hospital's post-trauma visiting policy. I'll be nice and come through the door, rather than the walls, but I won't hesitate to tear my way in past the wards if that's the only way I can see him."

Healer Wentson gulped audibly and cast her eyes downwards, remembering who it was that she was talking to.

"Mr. Browning is scheduled to be moved from our intensive care unit in two hours."

Harry nodded.

"That makes it eleven," he said, standing, and towering over the Healer, all traces of the exhaustion that had dogged his past few nights gone. Her look of fear returned in full force, undisguised. Harry gave a snort of contempt. "Tell the front desk to expect me there at ten thirty."

"Yes sir," she said, hurriedly, eager to get away. "Goodbye, sir. I'll tell them that right away."

She pulled her head back from the fireplace and vanished. Red-gold sparks danced in the space where it had been, and spread to encompass the rest of the fire, slowly turning it back into its natural roaring tongues of orange. The eerie green light that had flooded the room faded away, dimming into a softer, yellow light.

Harry turned to face the sunlight filtering in through a gap in the curtains. With a flick of the first two fingers of one hand, he pulled them open, letting real light rush into the room. He squinted against the sudden brightness, averting his eyes.

Bathing in the morning light, Harry stood there silently, thinking about his friend. Worry for Nick had clouded his judgement for several days now, and he had been starting to feel old, half-forgotten temptations rising. The promise he had made to Nick many years ago was a constant source of relief whenever treacherous thoughts began to form in his head. Loyalty to those he cared about was something that Harry defined himself with; the standard by which he was determined to live his life.

The fact that there were so few of them only served to heighten his need to stay true to the friends he had.

Brightly lit now, the room seemed somehow larger, more open – and yet also more confining, due to the sight of a long, low green hill stretching down from the very walls of the house. Harry could see faint wisps of smoke in the distance, over thickly wooded hills and a few open fields. The nearest town was almost five miles away and was little more than a small village. That was how he liked it. Decades had passed since he'd last been in public without wayward glances and hushed, fearful whispers following his every footstep.

Nick had been his only real contact with the outside world for many long years.

The sunlight reflected off a framed picture that Harry kept on a low table beside the couch. Aside from the hidden card, it was the only picture in the house. He sometimes wished that things had been different, that he had more pictures. Other days, when he was in a bleaker mood, he was grateful that he'd been spared a repeat of the pains suffered in keeping that friendship going; in keeping a memory of his humanity alive.

He picked it up with a rare, wistful smile. It showed two men sitting at a table outside a small pub in Germany. The one on the left was Harry himself; younger, brimming with confidence, and looking far less serious than he did now. The other was Nicholas Browning. He used to wear a short, carefully trimmed moustache, and as Harry drank in Nick's carefree smile, he grinned faintly. Even as his eyes moistened, he smiled, remembering how she had harassed him for weeks about the moustache, all but begging him to shave it off. A pink smudge blocked one corner of the photo, from where _her_ thumb had blocked the camera lens.

Gently, Harry returned the picture to the tabletop, and picked up the empty coffee mug that sat beside it. He went through into the kitchen and began to rinse it in the sink. As the icy water ran over his hands, his smile and wistful, longing mood vanished, just as his exhaustion had vanished when Healer Wentson had delivered her report.

Anger began to bubble in the pit of his stomach, hot and blinding.

His eyes fell on a portion of the floor that was slightly discoloured, set near a recess in the wall. He stared at it intently, jaw clenched.

Quicker than he'd moved that day, Harry thrust a hand into his pocket, drawing out a long, battered wand. He pointed it at the oddly faded group of marble tiles and hissed an incantation. With a harsh grinding noise, the tiles spun, shifted, and overlapped to reveal a small hole in the ground, and a set of dangerous-looking narrow stairs that led down, disappearing into the dark.

The noise cut off abruptly. Harry descended the steep flight of stairs in silence.

Each step was old and worn to dip in the middle. A small puddle had collected in more than one. Even so, Harry descended blindly, not bothering to hold onto the wall for support, and did not stumble or slip once.

As he drew closer to the base of the stairs an unpleasant smell assaulted his nostrils; the characteristic and familiar odour of decaying flesh. The basement that Harry kept hidden was shrouded in perpetual darkness. Even though he couldn't see his own hand, let alone the treacherous, narrow steps beneath his feet, he could clearly feel the delicate, rich thrumming of energy that indicated another source of life from across the room. It was more potent a presence than Healer Wentson's had been, but felt different, as if it had been covered in a thin film of grease or oil and had great holes torn into it by a savage beast.

Harry lit his wand, calling forth a ball of light. With a sharp flick of his wrist he tossed it into the centre of the room, where it hung like a small, blue-tinted sun, and the room was illuminated by its pale light. At one corner an emaciated man squatted with his arms held above his head, his skin pale and gaunt. He was naked save for a thin layer of ingrained muck and a few dirty scraps of cloth, and dried blood matted his hair.

Heavy chains wound around his wrists held the man inches off the ground, unable to sit or lie down. Another long, winding length of chain wrapped around his ankles prevented him from standing. Fresh blood glistened in wide circles around his wrists and ankles where the bare metal had cut into his flesh, leaving smeared tracks of dried blood running down his arms and pooling at his feet.

"Up," whispered Harry, accompanying his words with a sharp thrust of his wand. "Wake up."

The gaunt man let out a stifled yelp of surprise and looked up. His eyes were unfocused, and he refused to look directly at Harry. Fear was written clearly across his face. Dark rings nestled beneath his eyes, and purplish bruises dotted his face and chest, products of the wall that Harry had collapsed on top of him before taking him prisoner.

"P-please," he whispered hoarsely. "I'm sorry...please."

Harry ignored the pleas for mercy, and stalked forward, wand in hand, and green eyes blazing furiously.

The light went out.

"Please!" the man cried desperately.

Above the room, inside the house, and throughout the deserted countryside that surrounded it, a shrill yell of pain interrupted the quiet of the morning. There was a flurry of beating wings as the few birds nesting outside rose into the air, away from the shrieks of agony. The desperate screaming came and went erratically for more than half an hour, and then faded into silence.

Inside the room, Harry narrowed his eyes.

Golden light exploded from the man's body, so brilliant that it was blinding, and disappeared in seconds. Quiet, sobbing breaths broke the silence.

"P-please," the man whispered again, slurring his words.

The screams didn't fade for another fifteen minutes, but this time they died away completely and forever.

* * *

Much later, Aurors would find an unrecognizable corpse, mutilated far beyond recognition through judicious use of darker magic than most of the magical world knew existed. The body, though hardly recognizable, would eventually be identified as Nick Browning's missing assailant. Among the decaying flesh and boiling blood Aurors would find a small vial of swirling, silver memory, detailing the gruesome torture session that had preceded the body's current, horrific state.

Through the memory, Harry's face remained expressionless. After his prisoner's screams finally ended, he turned to face the Auror viewing the memory in the pensieve, as if he were really there and not simply a memory.

"I have given this warning before," he said. "Stay away from me and from those I care about. Every man who crosses the line and harms somebody under my protection will get this treatment, or worse. My tolerance of this idiocy is at an end."

The Auror shivered and leapt out of the pensieve, terrified at being so close to Harry, even if only a mere memory of him.

* * *

A tired-looking Mediwitch sat at the front desk, working her way through a small queue looking for aid.

Harry ignored them and strode past to stand directly in front of the queue.

"Hey!" squawked the man who had been talking to the Mediwitch. "You can't just-"

Harry turned around and fixed the man with a glare. He took a step back, muttering an inaudible apology, eyes wide in recognition.

"I was told you'd be coming, sir," the Mediwitch said, shuffling papers on her desk as an excuse to avoid looking at Harry. "What can I help you with?"

"I'm here to visit Nick Browning."

The Mediwitch looked up at him for the first time, then glanced down at a curling roll of parchment propped against the side of the desk.

"Ah – yes. He's still under observation, sir, in our intensive care unit. He's scheduled to be moved into a regular ward at eleven. If you'll take a seat through in the waiting area, I'll send somebody to fetch you when Mr. Browning is ready to see you. It's just through that door on the left, there, and along the corridor."

Harry nodded, wishing that Nick had already been moved. He had learned a great deal of patience over the years, but where the health of a friend was concerned that was all forgotten, replaced by a sense of blinding urgency.

"Thank you."

The Mediwitch flicked her eyes up at him again in surprise at hearing him say that. Harry grimaced for what felt like the hundredth time that morning. Too many people seemed to expect him to act like a violent, arrogant, and dangerous dark wizard.

He passed through the door, pretending that he couldn't feel all the burning gazes on his back. The waiting room was almost deserted, save for a harried woman of about thirty, her hair pulled back into a tight bun, and her daughter. The girl was a few years older than Katie had been, but looked too young to have started Hogwarts.

When Harry entered the room, the woman pulled her daughter onto her lap, and whispered something in her ear. The girl wriggled irritably, but her mother refused to let go, giving Harry a brief, wary glance.

The sight of the young girl, so obviously carefree and unaware of who he was, brought a slight smile to Harry's face – but the way that the woman stiffened as he walked past made it drop away as quickly as it had come. He took a seat at the far end of the room, not wanting to cause any more worry for the woman. As foolish as she was acting, in his mind, she was obviously here to visit someone, and he didn't want to add to the concern she must already have been feeling.

From his seat he could see part-way down the corridor, which stretched past the unattended Mediwitch's station covering one wall, and into the first three rooms. Two were empty, but the third had a half-closed door. Through the glass surface Harry could see an old man sleeping on starched white sheets, propped up by a number of pillows into a half-sitting position.

By the time the clock set on the wall displayed the time as eleven, Harry was beginning to grow impatient. Another five minutes passed, and he began to tap his fingers against the hollow metal legs of his chair.

He stared at the clock, willing the hands to move faster. Without turning, he sensed the powerful pulsing of healthy, magical life moving nearby.

"My mum said that I'm not allowed to talk to you."

Harry glanced down at the little girl, and then shifted his eyes back onto the clock.

"Maybe you should do as she says, then," he replied absently.

"My hamster died last week," she said. Harry sighed and looked at her. She was looking up at him earnestly, with wide, blue eyes and a hopeful expression. With one hand, she fiddled with a butterfly-shaped button on her dress. "Can you-" she began, a pleading note in her voice.

But Harry stood up, towering over the little girl, and said, "No. I'm sorry. I have to go now."

Harry walked away, ignoring the slight protest from the girl. He noticed that her mother was dozing in her chair; apparently another all-nighter like himself, if the dark bags under her eyes were any indication.

He pushed open the door to the reception, idly noting the time as he did so. It was getting close to a quarter past eleven.

As he drew close to the front desk, the Mediwitch on duty obviously recognized him. She said something that he didn't quite hear to the woman she'd been about to speak to, which made her nod and move away, torn between wanting to stay at the front of the queue and not wishing to get too close to Harry.

"Excuse me," said Harry. The Mediwitch put down the papers she'd been holding, and gave Harry her full attention. Taking this as an indication to go on talking, Harry asked, again, about his friend. "I was told that Nick Browning was to be moved into a ward by eleven. It's fifteen minutes past that, now."

"I'm sorry, sir, but there has been a slight delay. He'll be along any time now."

Harry put his hands on the edge of the desk and leaned forwards slightly, looming over the Mediwitch. She sucked in a harsh breath, but didn't move backwards, although Harry could tell that she was fighting the impulse to do so.

"Please return to the waiting room, sir," she said shakily. "I'll send someone upstairs to check on Mr. Browning for you, and they'll be right through to see you. Just a few more minutes, please."

Harry ground his teeth in irritation, and made his way back into the waiting room. The young girl and her mother had disappeared in the time that he'd been gone.

As he sat down, he saw that the old man in the room across the corridor had his eyes open and was sitting up fully. Harry watched him for a moment, wondering why he was in the hospital. Their eyes met, and Harry found himself fascinated as the old man neither flinched nor looked away in fear. Faint flecks of darkness permeated the sense of vitality that Harry could feel from him; a bleak foreshadowing of death approaching. There was a great deal of sadness in the man's eyes.  
Harry could recognize him for what he was – a terminal patient, with death only just around the corner. The man knew it, too. Harry could see it in the weariness in his eyes, and in the look of defeat sprawled across his face.

Spurred by a mix of morbid curiosity and boredom, Harry rose and rapped on the wooden frame of the door. The dying man beckoned him inside.

"Hello," said Harry.

"It's nice to have a visitor," he replied, a faint smile on his face. "Sitting in a hospital bed gets dull, with nothing to do."

Harry picked up the man's chart, which hung from a metal railing at the end of his bed, and studied it intently.

"I can never make head or tails of these things," said Harry, lifting the topmost sheet of parchment to peek beneath it. "What is an arcanistry-induced polyvitric asphyxiation?"

"We mere mortals call it Saltlung," the man replied pleasantly, as if unconcerned by the bleak diagnosis. "My lungs are slowly changing from flesh into crystals, like gigantic pieces of salt."

"I see," Harry said, his face expressionless.

He replaced the chart on the end of the man's bed, and hesitated, unsure whether to take a seat or leave.

"My name's Sam," the man said, gesturing at the empty chair beside his bed. "Samuel Rade, to the Healers. But just Sam for you."

Harry chuckled and took a seat. "Nice to meet you, Sam."

The two sat in silence for a while. Harry ran his eyes over Sam, seeing no real signs of poor health on the outside, but finding an ominous glassy sheen over his torso when looking with ethereal senses that most didn't possess.

"Thank you for coming in," Sam finally said, breaking the awkward silence. "I've been in here for weeks, and I feel like I'm going loopy with nothing to do but pester that attractive Mediwitch to pick up the book I accidentally keep dropping."

"It's no trouble." Harry hesitated to ask a delicate question, but did so anyway. "Have you had many visitors? Your wife, or kids come in?"

Sam didn't reply for a long time, casting his eyes over the sheets covering his legs before finally turning to face Harry again.

"No," he said. "There were never any children, and after my Becky passed away, I hadn't the heart to remarry. What about you? Are you here to visit family?"

"A friend. He was attacked by some idiot with a violent streak and no sense. I've been sitting around for days, waiting to hear if he's going to die. He's on the mend now, I hear." Harry sighed. "I hope."

"Waiting for someone to die," muttered Sam. "That's what I've been doing these past few weeks."

Harry fixed Sam with a long, hard stare.

They sat in silence, again. Harry clenched his jaw tightly. He felt as if he had to say something to Sam. The signs of fear and uncertainty were all there, and he easily recognized them for what they were. But there was a certain familiarity that they lacked, and to barge into a man's death uninvited is the single, most rude thing another man can do.

There was a single window in the room, and though he knew it was artificial, Harry stared at it fixedly. Sam kept sneaking glances at him from the corner of his eye. The stillness was less uncomfortable than it had been when Harry had first entered the room, and as his thoughts circled Nick's tenuous grip on life, Sam finally broke the silence.

"What do you think it's like?" he asked. "Dying, I mean."

Harry's gaze never strayed from the green illusion of a forest past the small window, and his body language didn't give anything away. To question death was not something he found surprising. He absentmindedly crossed his legs and leaned back on the chair.

"I wouldn't know, Sam," Harry said, taking a grim satisfaction in his words. "I have never died."

"Oh, come on," said Sam, giving a small, forced laugh. "You know more about it than that, Mister Necromancer."

Harry's eyes left the lively landscape and settled fully on the old man on the bed. He found a fair amount of expectation on Sam's face, of anticipation. Now he could see the faint trickle of fear he'd come to expect from people, but even as Harry smiled a small, dangerous smile Sam's eyes didn't stray.

"You know who I am," Harry said, not bothering to make it sound like a question. He had thought Sam hadn't recognized him; an old man's dream, perhaps. "You know who I am, yet you invited me in."

Sam chuckled, and there was some genuine mirth behind it, this time. "Oh, I know perfectly well who you are, Harry Potter," he said. "I doubt there's a single man or woman out there who doesn't know who you are. And while I'm slightly concerned about you taking my soul as a plaything when I finally pass away, there's no denying that you're probably the most knowledgeable man there is when it comes to death and the afterlife."

Harry fell silent and considered the man, weighing him with his eyes. It wasn't the first time someone had dared to ask him about life and death. Men and women alike, drowning in desperation over the loss of a loved one, had approached him from time to time, looking for reassurance; wanting to hear the magic words from someone they considered an authority on the subject.

But this was the first time that he'd come across someone who was afraid of death for himself, and not looking to come to terms with the death of someone else – at least, one daring enough to actually ask Harry about it. Perhaps that was what made this case different, or perhaps it was Harry knowing Nick would want him to give solace to a man who was destined to die alone.

"What is it that you wish to know, Sam?" Harry asked; his voice soft and even. "Are you afraid of death?"

Sam looked away.

Terminal patients generally have a certain air of sadness about them. Harry had known several in the course of his life. Some are better than others at keeping the memory of impending death at bay. Family visits and they will smile and play with the children and try to set everyone's fear at ease, so that when the time finally comes they can quickly move on with their lives. Others distance themselves from the living, feeling like marked men, knowing that death can claim them any minute.

Harry was starting to see what group Sam belonged to.

"My time is limited, Sam," Harry said. The man looked back at him, a hint of anxiousness making its way to his face. "Tell me, what is it about death that scares you, that keeps you awake at night?"

"You knew I wasn't sleeping earlier?"

Harry gave him a look that showed age and experience. "A man this close to death never sleeps."

Sam laughed bitterly. "You are nothing like I imagined," he said. "Where is the man so vicious and powerful prisons can't hold him? Where is the man Death itself fears? I can see both, Harry, but I'd never have guessed. The legends are false – the legends fall short."

Harry saw the man fold into himself, dragging whatever memories haunted him to the forefront of his mind. "Legends," Harry said slowly, his tone slightly condescending, "are made by men and for men. People believe what they wish to believe. When evidence to the contrary threatens to upset the balance they carefully construct around themselves, they will choose to be comfortable in ignorance over being right."

"And if I choose to be right?" Sam said, and his sadness was replaced by a challenging, almost angry tone in his voice. "If I choose to know?"

"Then I will tell you about death," Harry said, a smile of satisfaction on his face, "and tonight you will sleep soundly."

"That'll be a relief," replied Sam. He sighed wearily. "Call me greedy or selfish if you like, but I'd gladly go up to the long-term ward and wrestle one of the patients for a vial of their Dreamless Sleep potion."

"Death is a selfish journey, perhaps the most selfish journey a man can embark on. The things we do in life, the paths we choose – they can all be done with someone at our side. Honestly, the most wonderful thing about life is the company of those we choose to keep by our side."

Sam cocked his head to one side, and gave Harry an intense look.

"And the ones you've chosen to keep by your side?" he asked. Harry replied with a mirthless grin.

"Life is for the living, Sam. I died more than forty years ago. I've had companions over the years, but they've all fallen away. The living and the dead aren't meant to co-exist, you see. The journey of death, the transition between one state and the next – it is a selfish one. A lonely one. Some make the journey against their will, feeling there is still something among the living that they are compelled to experience, something or someone that they will miss in the afterlife. It is the most prominent of these who become ghosts, so long as they have the inherent magical ability needed to create one. Ghosts, as you know them, are little more than imprints left behind, like a wispy portrait caught outside its frame."

"Others are saddened on behalf of those they leave behind, yet know that there can be no other way. For them, death is natural; a part of life to experience, and it can be wondrous or torturous, forced or chosen."

Sam nodded silently. Harry paused for a moment, glancing at the man in the bed out of the corner of his eye. His hands were gripping the bed sheets tightly. Harry knew that he was no orator, to move a man to passion and tears in a few simple words. He paused, and glanced at Sam, who lost some of the harsh tension in his grip quickly. Harry shrugged it off, assuming it to be nothing important.

"But however you look at it, the journey to the afterlife is selfish, because no matter who you leave behind and what awaits on the other side, it is only your will and your beliefs that will carry you through."

Harry stopped speaking and waited to see if Sam had anything to say. The other man simply sat there, wearing a distant expression, clenching and unclenching his fists unconsciously.

He grimaced, suddenly, and clutched at his chest. A silent gasp slipped from between his lips, and he leaned forward. Harry focused inwards for a heartbeat, and snapped his unnatural senses into their full potency. The glassy sheen on Sam's chest was pulsing, almost glowing. It seemed a little larger. Sam lurched forwards, wheezing, with his face screwed up in a harsh visage of pain.

Tiny tears formed in the corner of Sam's eyes. He wasn't crying, Harry noted, but rather his eyes were reacting to how fiercely and tightly the muscles in his face were held. _  
_  
The two of them remained like that for several minutes, frozen in a tableau of agony._)_Dark power whispered at the back of Harry's mind. He ruthlessly crushed the urge to use that power, to cheat death in tearing loose all marks of ill health from Sam's body, and remake him as a bastion of perfect, immortal health that ran contrary to the very nature of life and death.

Harry grimaced. Nick wouldn't want him to do this.

The moment was lost. _  
_  
The door to Sam's room banged open, and a trio of Healers in lime-green robes rushed inside.

"'Please stand back, sir!' frantically shouted the first, while pulling a wand out of his robes. Harry didn't move as they crowded around the bed, but, instead, sat there, watching their haste as if from a great distance. One placed a hand on Sam's chest, forcing him to lie down, while the third ran the tip of his wand around the infected area of Sam's torso. A dim blue light began to shine from the path drawn by the wand.

"Sir!" repeated the Healer. "We need space to work in."

Harry studied Sam intently. The violent pulsing of corrosive magic grew steadily worse.

One of the Healers, younger than the rest, turned to face Harry, her expression pleading. She opened her mouth to say something, but the words got caught in her throat. Her skin was pale, and clammy. She hardly looked old enough to be out of Hogwarts, let alone working at St Mungos. Harry saw genuine concern for Sam in her eyes; he wasn't simply another figure on a clipboard, or a few lines jotted down in a file. She wasn't just doing her job. She cared.

It was this which made Harry's decision.

He left the room silently, and closed the door behind himself. _  
_  
Darkness tickled at the back of his mind, the ever-mounting pressure growing a little larger. In spite of everything, Harry was only human. Well, mostly human. Or at least a little.

His self-control wavered, just for a moment. The shadows lurking in the recesses of his power surged forth.

Harry closed his eyes and tried to focus, to let it disperse. It writhed in his grip, biting and tearing at the remnants of his control.

"Mister Potter?"

The distraction was too much for Harry. He slipped, again, for an instant, and the darkness escaped into the forefront of his mind. He'd been pushing it back for years, but even a second free was too much. Almost against his will – but still very much within his desires – his dark power touched the soul of every living thing in the waiting room.

Harry ripped back the power with a savage effort, and stopped it from claiming more innocent lives.

On the windowsill, a potted plant withered.

"I'm afraid that there's some bad news, Mister Potter. Perhaps you'd like to hear it in private?"

Harry opened one eye a crack. A young wizard stood before him, wearing plain brown robes. Not a Healer, he surmised. They wore lime-green at all times within the hospital.

"Here is fine," he said. The other wizard bit his lip nervously.

"There were some unforeseen complications with Mr. Browning's recovery. The team of Healers did their best, but his injuries were more severe than they thought. Umm..."

A cold, hard lump formed in the pit of Harry's stomach. Nick would be okay; he'd been through far too much by Harry's side for something as simple as this to kill him. Harry told himself that, over and over, trying to convince himself that it was true.

"I – I'm afraid Mr. Browning has passed away."

Harry let out a harsh, hissing breath.

The brown, withered potted plant crumbled into ash.

He needed to see Nick. Now. He told himself that the Healers had to be mistaken. It didn't feel like Nick was gone – he had to see for himself. Here, in the whitewashed waiting room, it didn't seem real.

"Where is he?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but hospital policy states that we can't let you in unless you're a family member," said the young wizard.

Disbelief shattered beneath a rush of anger at the young wizard who had the sheer audacity to stand between Harry and the last friend he'd managed to salvage from beyond the end of the world. Harry stood abruptly, glaring furiously at younger man, and took a step closer. The other man visibly stiffened and took a tiny step backwards.

"Do you know who I am, boy?"

"I-I'm sorry. The policy says that I can't –"

Harry grabbed the neck of his robes, and pulled him closer, lifting him a half-inch off the ground.

"Who am I?" he hissed. "Answer me!"

"Harry Potter," whispered the other wizard, struggling feebly in Harry's grasp. Harry released his robes. He landed on the ground with a soft thump, stumbled backwards, and almost fell.

"Now. Where is Nick?"

"Fourth floor," mumbled the man quickly backing away from Harry. "Ask for Healer Wentson. She was leading the team. I'm just an assistant. I didn't do any of the healing! It was her fault, not mine!"

Harry stared at him in disgust. Terrified of Harry and Harry's anger at the death of a friend, he'd attempted to fob the blame off onto someone else. A remnant of the dark powers nestled deep within Harry's subconscious touched the front of his mind eagerly. He embraced them, and ripped out a small chunk of the cowardly wizard's life.

He gasped, and fell to the ground, wheezing. Harry walked past him, deliberately treading on the corner of his robes as he scrambled to get up, leaving a large dusty footprint.

As Harry passed Sam's door, he paused and glanced through the glass pane set into the door. The Healers were crowded around the bed, blocking all view of Sam. A fresh wave of guilt at leaving the old man washed over him.

The stolen life bubbling inside Harry gave him an idea; he crafted it into a message, and pushed it at Sam. Laden with the primal energy of life, it would revitalize him, kick him back into life, and while ensuring that he'd survive the current spike in his illness, would whisper in his ear.

_I'll come back for you, old man. Hang on a few more minutes._

Harry ran into Healer Wentson at the top of the stairs. She jerked visibly at the sight of him, her face taut, and lime-green robes marred with large brown stains.

"He's through there," she said quietly. "We can't leave him there for too long, because of all the other patients, but because you're – because you're who you are, Healer Tanning said that you can have twenty minutes with him, maybe."

She gave Harry a nervous look, and Harry strode past her, deep into the hospital.

Near the back of the fourth floor, hidden by thick curtains, was a bare white room with a single smooth slab of stone in the centre. The stone hovered in the air like a legless table.

Nick lay on top of it.

His eyes were wide open, but blank, and empty. Harry was painfully familiar with that look, but he'd hoped to never see it on Nick. Thin trails of blood decorated his bare chest and arms. Beneath a mask of burns, his face was hardly recognizable.

Harry's gut twisted at the sight of his friend's desecrated body. Bright light spewed forth from three candles that spun slowly in the air, a foot above Nick. A single flame came from all three of the wicks, forming a bright white orb of light. Harry recognized them from an ancient Healing ritual.

Looking around, he saw other components of the ritual, carefully hidden around the seemingly bare room. Feathers from rare birds were woven into a netted mat on the underside of the stone slab, and runes were carved into the walls, and inlaid with marble almost the same shade as the bare white.

All these things hid the trappings of magic, and made the room look as close to a stark and professional chamber as possible.

Except for the horrific corpse laid to rest on the stone.

"Nick," he whispered, touching his friend's cheek as lightly as he could. His anger had dried up, leaving behind only a dangerous hollow feeling. He longed to fill the gap that Nick's death had caused. He longed to bring him back.

Almost subconsciously, Harry flexed the incredible power at his disposal. The white flames sputtered and died.

It would be wrong, he told himself. He reminded himself that he'd promised Nick that he wouldn't do this again, and that it would do no good. He told himself that each addictive taste of power would drag him back into his glorious, terrible days as the Necromancer, the much maligned God of Death. Like a mantra, he repeated the word promise over and over again silently.

He had to choose between the most important promise that he'd ever made, and the man who he'd made it to.

Alone in the darkness with a dead man, Harry made his decision.

He placed one hand over Nick's heart, and let raw, untainted life flow through him.

"Live," he whispered.

Nick's body jerked wildly, as if struck by lightning. The smell of burnt hair rose into the air. Golden light exploded from Nick, and shimmered around Harry. Where Harry's hand met Nick's chest, a halo too bright to look upon was formed.

"Breathe."

Nick's chest contracted and expanded, in a mockery of breath, over and over again. Heavy beats echoed around the room as his heart burst back into life. Guiding dead flesh back into health with stolen power that no mortal man should possess, Harry healed Nick. The burnt skin ran like molten rock for a moment before reforming, whole, and new. Cracked ribs shattered into dust, and new ones grew from the remains of the old.

Still, it wasn't enough. The body lived, breathed, and was perfect in every way. But it wasn't human. There was no soul.

Harry reached out and tore Nick's fleeting soul back from its passage into a distant place – and thrust it back into his body.

Nick's body convulsed violently. Limbs flailed wildly, in every direction, and his back arched, lifting up from the stone slab in an unnatural pose. Out-flung legs and arms thrashed against Harry, who simply brushed them away, despite the deep indents left in the stone slab where the same fists and feet had beaten against it.

After several long, chaotic moments, Nick's body stilled, and fell back onto the slab.

And then Nick sat up.

He gasped for breath, looking around himself in confusion, disorientation, and no small amount of wariness, until he saw Harry. His features softened somewhat, and he looked down at himself, inspected the unbroken skin where gaping wounds had been moments ago.

"Oh, Harry," he said, his tone gentle but chiding. "You shouldn't have done this."

Harry grimaced, and stuck his hands in his pockets. "I – Nick, I –"

His newly resurrected friend clapped his hands together loudly, cutting Harry off.

"Don't make excuses," said Nick. "We both know why you're here; why I'm here."

Harry sighed. This was a familiar situation. Every time that he'd given in to the desire to use his necromantic abilities, Nick had been there to hammer some sense back into him. His life before befriending Nick had been very different, fraught with horrors and wonders beyond the wildest dreams of most witches and wizards, let alone the fantasies and nightmares of Muggles.

"I'm sorry," he said, meaning his words more than he could express. They rang hollow in his ears, crude and impotent. He wished that he knew how to tell Nick how much he regretted it – and, at the same time, how he'd had little choice. Nick knew. Harry knew that. But it didn't make things any easier.

"Don't fucking apologize," snapped Nick, stretching his arms with a series of small popping noises as locked joints were forced back into movement. "You apologize too much. Come on, man," he said, softening his tone. "You've kept to your word, and let the past lie where it belongs, for how many years now? Ten? Fifteen? Nearly twenty, if we excuse a few slips here and there. That's all this is. A slip. A tiny little slip. "

"I couldn't just leave you to rot," said Harry, "You knew that I'd do it, didn't you? That if anything happened to you, I'd bring you back? We've been to hell and back together." Harry's jaw tightened, and he stared at the stark white ceiling, his expression darkening with every second that passed. "Or at least you watched while I turned the world into hell."

"The dead don't belong with the living. Let go."

"I can't." Harry laughed bitterly. "I can't let you die."

"I'm already dead, Harry. I don't belong here. You, of all people, know that."

"Dammit, Nick-" started Harry, wrenching his hands out of his pockets to seize Nick by the shoulders.

"No!" shouted Nick, interrupting Harry, and pushing him away with inhuman strength. "Enough excuses! Every second you keep me here, it gets harder for you to let go." As he spoke, Nick's words become more desperate, and he spoke quicker, laden with a burning urgency. "Do you think that I can't see the haze in your eyes as you start to regress? I've seen it before, and I will NOT see it again. I'm dead! Let me rest."

Harry knew that he was right, but a niggling worry at the back of his mind leapt out of his mouth before he had time to register what he was saying.

"I can't keep doing this by myself. It may be months, or years, but without you around..." He trailed off, disgusted with how pathetic he sounded. It was true that Nick had held him back when temptation had proven to be too much, but he was no child clutching at his mother's apron strings.

"What? You'll roll over for the darkness inside you? Grow a pair! You've beaten this back for this long, and you can damn well do it until the day you die."

Harry smiled mirthlessly; bitterly. Nick was right. Again. Harry knew that he'd succumb to his dark powers, but he also knew that he'd recovered, and brought the world back from the brink of annihilation – an annihilation that he himself had caused.

"And if I never die?" he asked. Nick stared at him for a long time, silent.

"Even gods die," he said at last. "But I'm a man, Harry. My time has passed."

Harry smiled faintly.

"Yeah." He hesitated, wondering how to continue. "I've never been good with saying goodbye..."

"This isn't goodbye," said Nick. "You know where I'm going better than I do. Come visit me once in a while, yeah?"

"Yeah," said Harry. "See you around, old man."

With a heavy heart and dry eyes, Harry released the magic binding Nick's soul into his body. Nick's eyes rolled back into his head, and he fell forwards, pitching off the stone slab, and falling onto the floor with a meaty thump.

Harry carefully replaced Nick on the slab. Several long, painstaking minutes passed as he redrew the wounds that he had healed moments ago with the tip of his wand.

When he left the room, there was no sign that he had ever been there – save for a faint greasy film on the enchanted candles, like a fine layer of oil shimmering in the air around the pure white flames.

* * *

Once on the stairs, Harry's thoughts began to move away from the man he'd just left, and towards the one who he'd been speaking to before that. He hoped that the little boost of vitality he'd sent in Sam's direction would be enough. Unwilling to leave such matters to fate – but perfectly content to twist fate's arm to get what he wanted – Harry headed back down towards Sam's room.

Sam looked awful.

Haggard, exhausted, and marred with thin pink lines all over his face, showing where his features had been warped into a screwed-up mask of agony, Sam showed every one of his years, and a handful more.

Hidden beneath dark rings, however, there was still a spark of life in his eyes.

"Come to finish your tale?" he quipped in a raspy voice as Harry sat down.

"My tale is hardly a bedtime story. It will leave you with nightmares flooded with horrors beyond imagining, and wonders too terrible to behold. I can continue to tell you about death, without delving too deeply into my past, if you wish," he said._  
_  
The man nodded. "I think your tale is fascinating, and good stories are meant to be told. I assure you, Harry, you will find no better audience than me."  
_  
_Harry smiled sadly. Sam reminded him a bit of Nick. He always insisted Harry shared his adventures with him, usually on those long nights they spent sipping scotch and remembering the golden days. The pain in Sam's face was almost a mirror image of the expression that Nick had worn on long winter nights in front of the fire, nursing his injured hip from damage recalled by the colder weather.

After he had spoken, Sam burst into a coughing fit. When it subsided, he wiped a few specks of blood from his lower lip. Harry noticed a light spattering of red-brown stains on the otherwise white duvet. Most of it was still fresh, and slightly wet. Only a small portion had dried already.

"Are you okay?" asked Harry. Sam nodded, and gave a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm fine." He gave Harry a small, mirthless grin. "Going to tell me the story before this kills me?"

Harry grimaced at the blasé dismissal of Sam's impending death. He was accustomed to seeing people die, but even in so short a time, he'd grown a little fond of Sam.

"My story," Harry began, "is not without its dark holes. I'm sure you've heard of some already, but the worst ones are often ignored by people. There is good in there, too, and some light – light to illuminate the darkness, and the searing might of divine light. But before then, before the wrath of gods fell upon me, there were simpler times. I was an innocent child once, after all. And while there were moments so dark, so dangerous, that they threatened to overwhelm me, there was also someone to help me cope, to help me resist the infinite pull of power and death."

"But where to begin? There are so many instances of my life that would work as a beginning. I could tell you of the Battle of Hogwarts, of the skirmishes of Europe, of the army of the undead. I could tell you things that would make your skin crawl. Or I could tell you of moments so heart-wrenching that would make the most stoic man in the world weep like a child."

Sam smiled faintly. "I would like to hear it all."

"In that case I will tell you everything," Harry said, and settled down on his chair more comfortably. "We can skim through most of my childhood, as it was not only unpleasant, but unremarkable as well. I could start with my first year at Hogwarts. That is when it all began for me. That was the moment my first friend turned my world upside-down with only four words."

Harry took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The usual impassiveness of his face faded into a slight frown, as if the memories of his early adolescence were something to be treated carefully. He mulled the words in his mind for a moment, and when he spoke next his voice was tinted with regret.

"And yet my first year at Hogwarts set me down a path no sane man would want to travel," Harry continued. "That year I met a man who would take everything away from me, the same man who had left me to rot in my uncle's house, the one who had taken away my parents. I speak of Lord Voldemort, the most powerful Dark Wizard in centuries – or at least one of the top two."

Harry leveled Sam with a serious look. "But to truly understand the life of a Dark Wizard," he told him, "you must first cast off all ideas that you already hold about dark magic. Forget rumours, knowledge, and speculation. Can you do that?"

Sam nodded immediately. "Yes, of course," he said. "I am not a biased listener."

"Of course you aren't," Harry said, and now a faint smile graced his face. Sam's lack of fear for him was a refreshing change. "Most of what is said these days is utter tripe anyways. This, however, is true."

"True darkness," he explained, "the darkness found in the eyes of a murdered child, or the heart of a fallen star – it falls slowly, and suddenly, and precisely where I wish it to. I am the unsung herald of night, and the one true master of death."

"However, as powerful as I was, as skilled and deadly as I could be, it was never enough," Harry said. "Lord Voldemort had power beyond my comprehension. He was the champion of magic itself. He had surpassed death, and wielded the power of a newborn god._"_

He paused for a moment.

"And you see, Sam," Harry carried on in a soft whisper. "Even gods die. I should know. I killed them."

Harry cleared his throat. "But this story is not about gods and men, about power and murder," he continued. "This story is about the deepest, most pure dreams of an innocent child, about the building fury of a betrayed teenager, and about the quest for vengeance of a broken man." Harry smiled a sad, bitter smile. "The story of my life."

"It begins at the end of my first year at Hogwarts, when my friends and I discovered Lord Voldemort was attempting to steal something very valuable," he explained. "Something the then Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, was keeping hidden in the bowels of the castle."

"Lord Voldemort sought resurrection, you see, and there was no better tool than the Elixir of Life. A wraith was all he was back then, a mere ghost of his former glory, and all that stood between him and power was me, because I had the Philosopher's Stone..."


	2. Chapter 2

For the hundredth (second) time, thanks toeveryone at DLP, my supermegafoxyawesomehot beta, IdSayWhyNot, and everyone who has reviewed, will review, and is reviewing right now. And even to everyone who doesn't review, but favourite or alert-lists this story or myself. Although no words are exchanged, that's still a thumbs-up of approval, and I'm glad to see that you liked this enough to want to read more.

...I talk too much. I'll stop doing that now with just one quick warning: as the end of the last chapter suggested, we're now moving into Harry telling the story. As such, it's in first person, narrated by Harry. I hope this chapter lives up to expectations!

* * *

Flames roared around the edge of the chamber, filling the room with a stifling heat. While I had no idea where this was within the castle, it felt as if it was more an underground cavern than a hidden corner of a school. My nostrils stung and water gathered in my eyes as arid blasts of air billowed outwards from the tongues of flame dancing between bare stone walls and my very flammable self. I was not alone, but the other person in the room was far less vulnerable than I felt.

The inhuman face of Voldemort studied me from the back of Quirrell's head. Grey, scaly skin ran across Quirrell's bald head and Voldemort's face as if he was afflicted by a particularly horrific disease that was slowly inching its way out from Voldemort to consume Quirrell. This alone caused the hairs on the nape of my neck to stand on end, and my stomach to roil.

I stared at my own reflection in the mirror behind Voldemort. I couldn't look at him. I couldn't stand the sight of his grotesquely twisted visage, or the way his – Quirrell's – arms hung limply, pointing in the wrong direction for his head.

He bared his teeth in an insidious smile, eyes glistening yellow and red with the reflection of firelight and magic. I didn't dare look away, towards the only way out of this death trap; an exit I knew to be blocked by a raging wall of Quirrell's making. As much as I hoped for a way out, there was no denying that I was caught fast in a flaming web, where Voldemort was the spider. The only way out was death. As I stared death in the face, I resolved to find a different way.

With nothing more than a face to carry his presence, he carried more cold menace than anything else I had ever encountered. I knew that I wouldn't be able to escape even if the walls of flame subsided. Voldemort's mere presence – the utter _fear_ that it inspired – was intoxicating.

"Tell me, Harry," he whispered in a low voice that carried across the chamber as if he stood beside me, causing me to jerk involuntarily, and grasp my wand in a white-knuckled grip. "Would you like to see your mother and father again?"

I froze.

This was not what I had expected. I don't know what I had expected, but whenever I had thought of Voldemort in the past, my nightmares, waking or otherwise, were filled with harsh, manic laughter, fear, and hate.

"It was never my wish for any harm to come to your family – your _real _family," Voldemort continued. "Your father came from one of the oldest and most respected wizarding families, and your mother was a close friend to a man who fought faithfully beside me to fulfil my dreams of a better world. When I came to your house that night, all I wanted was their aid. I wanted them to join me, Harry, not to stand against me with raised wands."

Voldemort sounded sincere, but I could find no good in his lie. Whether he came looking for slaves or enemies to destroy, he had still murdered them in cold blood. I refused to believe a word that he said, no matter how easy he made it sound.

"You're lying," I said, still clutching onto my wand. I shifted my weight slightly, onto my back foot, getting ready to run. There was nowhere to run to, but I couldn't just stand there, waiting to die. I would fight until the end, even if I had to club him raw and bloody with the Philosopher's Stone itself. "My parents would never join you. That's why you killed them."

"I had no choice, Harry," he said, a tone of regret creeping into his words. I stiffened at the sound of it, hating him for sounding so real. "Believe me when I say that I deeply regret what came to pass that night."

I found myself inexplicably studying the gruesome nature of Voldemort's face. He truly did look like the victim of an awful disease, rather than the type of person who would create it with foul magic.

Sympathy for his plight trickled out of me. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to live as he had, less than a ghost for almost as long as I had lived.

His presence was still intimidating, but it seemed different; human.

I didn't like the change. It felt deliberate.

This sympathy couldn't be real. I took a step backwards, away from his damning influence, as if it would help.

"What are you doing to me?" I snapped, hating Voldemort for making himself human, and making himself harder to hate. I tried to force away the magic I imagined twisting my thoughts, but the effort did nothing but make me dizzy. I didn't know if it succeeded. I didn't really know if it had been needed at all.

"I, Harry? I am only speaking the truth. You can feel it, can't you? The way that everything I say seems so right, so perfectly logical? You are an extraordinary young wizard, just as I once was. I can see much of myself in you. There is greatness waiting to emerge, if only you choose to let it. Will you let your parents' sacrifice be a price paid in vain, or will you continue to fight for a better world, as they did?

A strange expression ghosted across Voldemort's face. If he had been anyone else, I would have called it regretful.

"They were not bad people, but simply misguided. It was not their fault that they chose the wrong man's dreams to believe in."

I pulled out my wand, pointing it as steadily as I could at Voldemort.

"Stop it," I demanded; urgently, angrily.

"I would still have them with me – with you, if I could. It's not possible, not now, but together we can eventually bring them back. All I need is to have a body once more – I need to live, before I can help others do the same. You can help me there, Harry."

My hand crept down to my pocket, seemingly of its own accord, and I took out the glistening ruby stone; a misshapen gem of incredible power. It was heavier than its size would suggest, and as cold to touch as glass. Heavier still was the burden of carrying it – a burden that Voldemort was all too happy to relieve me of. I turned it over in my hands, and looked up to see Voldemort staring at it hungrily. A flash of white-hot anger burned at the sight of his desire for the Stone. I hated the idea of it in his possession. It wasn't just from a wish to keep its incredible magic out of his grasp, but more a petty urge to stop somebody that I hated from getting his hands on something that he so desperately craved.

"That is it," he whispered. I gave a start at the awe in his voice. "Do you know what lies within your hands? Wars have been fought at the merest hint of that stone's existence, wars the likes of which the world has not seen in hundreds of years. There were more, once, but they were all hunted down and destroyed until only the alchemist's master copy remained."

Voldemort broke off in a wistful sigh. Intrigued, I tore my gaze away from the Stone, and looked up at him. He was staring at it with a distant, longing expression. In the mirror, Quirrell caught me watching Voldemort, and raised an eyebrow.

"Flamel was a jealous man," he said at last, before turning to me. A commanding tone crept into his voice, the same I'd heard him use with Quirrel. "Give me the stone."

I opened my mouth to tell him where I'd like to shove the Stone, thrown off track by the sudden demand. Something stopped me. I had a nasty suspicion that it was whatever he'd been doing to me moments ago, with honeyed words and a poisonous charisma.

No. I couldn't ever side with him, ever give him the stone. He had killed my parents, and everyone that I had ever trusted told me that he was the embodiment of all evil.

But he'd offered to put right the only bad thing he'd done to me.

He offered to bring them back.

And I wanted to see them again. It pained me to admit it, but I knew that there was only one answer I could give. I gave the wrong one.

"Okay," I whispered, my mouth as dry as the air. Quirrell stiffened, and let out an excited hiss behind Voldemort's hideous face. Voldemort's eyes widened for a split second in surprise, so quickly that I almost missed it.

"You have made the right decision; chosen to stand by a prophet of magic as we chase the shadows out of a weary world. You will be loyal, child. I reward those who show great loyalty. Anything you wish can be yours in my new world, Harry," he said, speaking in a slow, almost hypnotic voice, laden with promises so unimaginable that I feared they were lies. "You will stand by my side, your power surpassed only by my own, and your parents will live again. All this, and more, if only you give me the stone."

It was too late to take back my choice. My decision could never be undone.

Before I knew it, I was standing so close to Voldemort and his host that I could have reached out and touched the misshaped, unnatural skin that separated master and puppet. The sight of it this close made bile rise in my throat. I stifled the urge to gag at the bitter taste that touched and teased at my tongue, trying to let my uneasy stomach settle itself. I didn't dare show such obvious weakness in front of Voldemort, of all people.

Quirrell turned. I could see Voldemort's face in the mirror, watching my reflection as a cat watches a mouse. I shivered.

Quirrell held out his hand and stared down at me. With a heavy heart, I placed the stone in his palm. He let out a long sigh, and wrapped his fingers around it tightly. A shadow seemed to lift from his face.

"Thank you," he whispered. Voldemort's laughter muffled part of Quirrell's words as he lifted the stone up behind his back, for his master to see.

"Yes, Harry!" Voldemort hissed ecstatically. "Thank you so very much indeed."

I expected to feel terrible, but there was only an awful emptiness inside me. The abyss had opened its maw and swallowed what little remained of my pride. I had failed. Nobody could call me the saviour of the wizarding world again, not after this. I felt my lips quirk in a bitter smile. At least that idiocy would be gone from my life.

"My parents," I said, managing to force the words out from my treacherous throat. "You said that you'd bring them back. Do it."

I clamped my mouth shut just in time to stop a hungry _please_ from running loose. Voldemort laughed again, and I felt something inside me flare up in anger. He wouldn't go back on his words – he couldn't! He may have been a treacherous snake, but he had to want me for something, or he'd have just killed me, and taken it from my dead hands.

"Harry, Harry, you are so very young and foolish. Greatness is earned, not given, and to turn back the cold touch of death is among the greatest feats of magic – greater by far than an eleven year old _boy_."

"I gave you the stone!" I exclaimed, my voice rising almost to a shout.

To my surprise, it was Quirrell who came to my defence.

"Master – the boy will have many uses, if loyal," he said. Voldemort hissed in wordless agreement.

"Will you be loyal, boy? Or will you betray me to Dumbledore? Will you die a martyr, never to see your mother and father again?"

I closed my eyes to stop the hot prickling that had erupted beneath their lids.

"Yes," I whispered. _Please forgive me, Mum, Dad._ "I won't tell Dumbledore anything."

Something pressed against my forehead suddenly. I snapped my eyes open to see Quirrell holding his wand against me.

"I will give you a false memory. When Dumbledore asks you what happened, you will speak of this, and not mention any hint of true events. Are we clear?"

I nodded, causing the wand to push a little harder into my skin. It hurt, not much, but an apt reminder of the danger that stood before me – not that I could ever forget, especially with a wand pointed right at me. Quirrell twisted the wand sharply and a wave of dizziness overcame me. I stumbled, and almost fell. Quirrell reached out an arm to steady me, but Voldemort hissed at him to stop.

"Let the boy learn to stand on his own two feet, or I have no use for him."

"As you wish, my master," said Quirrell, stepping away from me. I looked up at him, confused. This was the man who had tried to kill me so many times over the year, or so he claimed, and he appeared to want to help me. It didn't matter, not much. I had something more important on my mind – Voldemort.

"Now, Potter," said Voldemort, watching me through the mirror. "If you manage to make your way back up to the school intact, you may yet be reacquainted with the ones you seek. For now, I must unlock the secrets of this relic, and recover my strength. Quirrell! Let us leave this castle...for now."

Quirrell turned away from me, to face himself in the mirror as he slowly rewrapped his turban around Voldemort's wide, inhuman eyes.

The flames wreathing across the walls of the chamber slowly began to recede, dimming into dark shadows flickering in corners, and black sparks deeper than the dark. Quirrell snapped his fingers, and the shadows, the sparks, the remnants of his magic rushed towards him. A cold breeze tickled my skin, and I gave an involuntary shudder. The exhilarating, intoxicating, unfamiliar magic surrounded Quirrell in a threatening nimbus, seeming to suck the light from the chamber. Standing so close to him, I felt the very edges of it caress my skin like a brush of addictive static.

A sharp crack tore through the air. Behind him, the mirror shattered into a thousand pieces, each tumbling to the floor, and reflecting the firelight to look like tiny pieces of the Philosopher's Stone, a thousand drops of frozen blood for the thousand lives that I feared my actions this day would extinguish.

I watched in morbid fascination as Quirrell clenched his fists, causing the magic to seep into his body. Only moments later, it had disappeared completely from view, although I could still feel a lingering wisp of power in the air.

"Potter," said Quirrell, striding past me. "My master has set you a test. Survive it, and you will be given that which you crave."

A rush of anger and frustration welled up inside, nowhere and everywhere at the same time. I had betrayed everything I had learned this year since discovering what it was to be a wizard, and that was not price enough for even a glimpse of my parents. In that moment, I felt utterly useless. I knew that there was little else I could have done, and that had I not, he would simply have taken the Stone from me by force, but cold logic did little in the face of white-hot guilt.

"Potter!" snapped Quirrell, standing at the entrance to the chamber, still facing away from me. "I dislike leaving my debts unpaid. You _will_ survive." He half-turned his head and levelled me with a meaningful look. "Fire will help you do so."

He had left before I had time to ask what he meant. I was terrified, alone, in the dark, and faced with an unknown challenge that would very likely kill me. I did the only thing I could: survive.

All my life, I had survived. I had survived a killing curse as a baby, and life in a cupboard at the Dursleys. I had survived awe and ridicule at Hogwarts, and I would damn well survive this. I wasn't a little boy, coddled by his daddy's purse-strings like Draco Malfoy or Dudley Dursley. I was the Boy-Who-Lived, and nothing, not even the Dark Lord himself would stop me. In giving him the Stone, I had hit rock bottom, but I had survived an encounter with him for the second time. There was nowhere lower to go but death, and I would _not_ die. Not here. Not now.

I gritted my teeth, and set with the determination that had led me down here in the first place, I took my first step upwards, out of the chamber. The next step was easier. I soon stood at the grate of black flame that blocked the entrance – only the flames were no longer there.

As soon as I stepped past the archway, however, the flames roared back into life, hungrily tonguing the air. I glanced back over my shoulder at them. Dumbledore had gone to a lot of wasted effort in building this gauntlet of defences. Either he'd meant for them to be overcome, or maybe, just maybe, I was _that_ damn good. I couldn't help it. I laughed aloud from the sheer incredulity of the situation. After my confusion and fear in the mirror chamber, the simple satisfaction of having beaten Dumbledore's defences seemed like an incredible rush of victorious joy.

I was Harry Potter. At one year old, I had defeated both Voldemort and death. An obstacle course couldn't stop me, no matter who made it.

My laugh soon drew attention that I didn't want.

There was a troll in the next chamber.

A dead troll.

_Standing_.

Lumbering towards me, it looked as dead as I would be if it came too close. Blood had poured thickly out of a nasty gash on its head, lending it a pale, sickly pallor in comparison to the heavy colouring of the troll I had rescued Hermione from at Halloween, and building a mottled clot of congealed gore on the side of its head. The troll's slow, unnatural movements shook the large clot out of place, and thick clumps of it broke loose. Thin streams of blood trickled out from where the clot had broken, providing bright red highlights against the dried brown of older blood.

It was a fresh corpse, but couldn't pass for living. The shambling gait as it dragged its legs, the dull, lifeless eyes, and the silence when there should have been breath all screamed out a sense of utter wrongness.

Adrenaline spiked. My mind raced. My heart raced faster. I remembered the first troll I'd fought. I'd had help, but I'd done it. I could do it again. I could beat it. I could survive!

I pointed my wand at the club held loosely in the troll's lifeless hand.

"Wingardium leviosa!" I shouted, making two swift movements with my wrist; first a swish, to gather the magic, and then a flick, to send the thickly-hewn wood hurtling upwards in my grasp.

The club followed the motion of my wand perfectly. I sucked in a quick breath through teeth bared in a vicious grin, and released the spell. The club tumbled down, turning once, and collided roughly with the side of the troll's head. The troll lurched backwards from the force of the blow, but kept on coming.

"Wingardium leviosa!"

I stabbed my wand furiously at the club, and drove it through the air in a practiced, rushed, simple motion. The troll was getting closer. Once the club was firmly in my magical grasp, I spun my arm in a wide arc, sending it flying across the chamber, and smashing into the side of the troll's head. It stumbled, but kept coming. I flicked my wand again, in the opposite direction, and gave the troll a thicker blow from the other side.

Thick meaty sounds accompanied each blow. I kept on darting my wand around from side to side, beating the troll as hard as I could. I knocked the troll from one side to the other, and a patina of gore began to develop on the surface of the club. Despite the viscous stains on the club, flung across the room by my frantic swings, and slowly running down the length of the wood, the troll seemed more or less unfazed.

Its head was beginning to fall out of shape, collapsing in on itself like a deflated ball. I swung my wand again, forcing all the will I could muster onto the club and a violent crunch resonated beyond the spongy thump of wood on flesh.

The sound made my stomach heave. A cold sweat broke out on my arms and back, and I touched a nervous tongue to dry lips.

Even this did no good. Blood on the club slowly replaced itself with flecks of white, and a horrible unfamiliar substance that I guessed was part of its brain. As the gory mixture got crushed together under the force of another swing, and another, and another, more and more chips of bone mixed with thick liquids and chunks of bloody flesh torn loose from the troll to form a pink dripping coat on my stolen weapon.

I backed away until I could feel the hard press of cold stone against my back, icy to the touch even through my thick robes, and with the doorway of fire burning so close.

"Verdimillious," I muttered, desperately. A bolt of green light shot out the end of my wand, colliding harmlessly with the troll's chest. I cursed. The troll was almost upon me.

I knew so little magic that it was infuriating. The most complex spell I knew would turn the club into a three-legged stool, but that would do even less good than the club, no matter how pointy I made the legs.

Quirrell's words came to mind, and I remembered Hermione freeing us from the Devil's Snare.

"Incendio!"

A jet of flame shot out the tip of my wand, straight at the troll. It stopped moving closer. My spell didn't even reach it, but petered out inches from its grotesque, bloody corpse. I took a step closer, and my spell touched the troll, just barely. At last! Sparks danced across the troll's thick, magic-resistant skin, stubbornly at first, but then my spell caught onto the thick animal-hide attempt at clothing that was all either troll I'd seen had worn.

Foul-smelling black smoke rose from the burning hide, and the troll staggered backwards, faster than I'd seen it come at me. The smell of singed hair caused my eyes to water, and reminded my nostrils that the awful stench of the troll hadn't caused them to shut down, after all.

It was useless. The troll lurched away from me for the few precious seconds that it took to reduce its rough clothing into a heap of ash, but only the sparse hairs covering the troll's body would burn under the force of my spell. I couldn't get it to catch alight as I had hoped. I cursed again, wishing I knew another fire spell.

I didn't. There was no time left. My arsenal of spells was abysmal. I had to make do with what I had.

All I had was a lump of gory wood and the room I stood in, trapped between black flame, stone walls, and a shambling nightmare. As the brief fire that had consumed its clothes dwindled into nothing more than a stinging in my nostrils as I breathed in smoke, the troll began its lumbering advance once more.

I had nowhere left to run; no secret spells, or magical aces hidden up a sleeve. I stood there numbly, frozen, afraid. My heart pounded so quickly, so furiously, that I could feel the blood thrumming in my ears, hear it pulsing in a rapid thumping as loud and chaotic as each crushing blow that I had made with the club. I opened my eyes wide in terror as it drew ever closer, faster than the first time, as if my _incendio_ had jolted it closer to life.

The dead beast before me threw up an arm thick and strong enough to crush me into the same gory pulp that decorated the club. I saw nothing in its eyes.

I saw death in its fist.

And then I saw fire.

The final defence before the mirror room, flame as black as the troll's lifeless eyes, still reared and flickered in the archway. I knew, in that moment, that I was going to die.

"Wingardium leviosa," I murmured, no longer caring to shout my incantations. My mouth was dry from heat, desperation, anger, frustration, and a dozen emotions that I could scarcely name. But I was still alive.

Faster than I'd ever moved a wand before, I whipped the slender stick towards the archway, pulling on every instinct, every lightning-quick reflex honed from Quidditch and dodging Muggle fists.

I flicked my wand in a neat circle, spinning the club within the archway, dousing it in the black flames guarding the entrance to the mirror's chamber. It worked! Black fire wreathed the club, a halo of burning destruction. I had to move fast. I spun, tearing the club through the air with every remnant of determination that I could muster. The flames clung to it from the archway, as if reluctant to release their prey. On impulse, I expanded the levitation charm to include a hefty chunk of the flame, and thrust it forwards with every ounce of my power and focus.

A monstrous wave of flame wrapped around a solid core rushed past me, biting and crushing at the troll. I threw up a hand to protect my eyes from the sudden burst of roaring heat. My heart raced.

I pulled back my wand, and the club with it. Most of the flame remained with the troll, ripping and gouging with vehemence as if it were alive, and I hesitated, awed by the vicious enchantments that Dumbledore had laid upon the fire.

My hesitation didn't last long.

I thrust my wand out like a rapier, and tore the burning club through where I imagined the troll's heart to be. The damned creature still refused to die. But I refused to let it live.

Three sharp blows of the club and a particularly well-aimed jab at its kneecaps later, the troll stumbled and fell. The ground shook ominously under its weight. I stood, panting, a few feet away from it with my wand still raised. It was the first thing that I'd ever killed, and it felt _good_; better than I could have possibly imagined.

I wanted to fall myself, to sit, to lie down, to rest, but I couldn't. Not here. My heart still thundered, but it was a fading beat. My knees quivered, once, and I nearly fell. The need to fight was all that had kept me going. Exhaustion washed over me.

The fallen corpse lay on the ground, unmoving. It seemed dead – really dead, this time – but still I skirted the edge of the chamber, doing my best to avoid coming anywhere near it.

An oversized hand grabbed at my leg.

"Incendio!" I shouted frantically. My robe caught on fire, and the fingers loosened enough for me to pull it free. I ignored the agonizing burning across my leg, and ran.

The fire seared at my skin until I had reached the chamber filled with flying keys, where I tripped, and landed face first on the cold stone floor. The harsh contrast of cold stone against hot, burnt skin shook me out of my terror. I ripped off my robes, and tossed them to one side. My glasses had struck the ground hard, and one of the lenses had fallen out. I couldn't find it. I didn't look. I needed out far more than I needed to see.

I left my glasses and robes where they had fallen, and limped over to a broom, wincing every time my foot touched the ground, or brushed against the ragged jeans that I had been wearing beneath my robes.

Flying had always come easily to me, but now, I couldn't muster the energy to throw a leg over the broom. I leaned against it for a moment, and tried to remember how to breathe properly. It wasn't easy. Something was caught in my throat. I swallowed, in an attempt to clear my throat, and fell into a helpless coughing fit.

Inhaling that much smoke couldn't be healthy. Especially not with the little lumps of burnt troll floating around in it.

When the coughing fit subsided, I wiped a hand across my mouth to remove the small flecks of spittle that dotted my lips. My hand came away smeared in red. I tried not to think about what the red stain was, and hoped that there wasn't too much of it on me.

I decided not to look in a mirror until after I'd had a shower. And a bath. And a swim in the lake. With the realization that I was spattered in gore had come a disgusting feeling that I was unclean. It felt like a layer of grime had suddenly appeared beneath my clothes, fitting me like a second skin.

The need to get out of here and get the stains off helped give me enough energy to slip one leg over the broom, and push off. I only used my uninjured leg, and the broom spun to one side dangerously, threatening to careen out of my control.

I managed to steady it after a few moments.

As I flew out of the chamber, the stench of death and smoke followed me.

The pungent aroma lingered past the Devil's Snare, and through the trapdoor. I tossed the broom to one side, not looking to see where it landed; not caring enough to want to.

A three headed dog growled, feet away. I couldn't be bothered dealing with it. I pointed my wand without looking in its general direction.

"_Incendio_."

I laughed at the sound of three identical yelps, and a sudden hefty thud as Fluffy bounded away from the fire.

But I still didn't look. I just walked out of the door, and kept walking.

I could still smell death.

I could still smell smoke.

I wondered if the smells would never fade.

Students flinched and stared as I walked past, ogling my ragged, bloodstained state. I kept walking, one step after another. Somebody shouted my name, but I didn't recognize the voice, or even notice that they had spoken until I'd walked past them. It was too late to reply when I noticed, so I simply didn't bother.

Something tugged at my robes. For one heartrending moment I thought it was the troll, and whipped my wand behind me. The tugging stopped, and I realized what a foolish idea that was. My heart didn't stop racing. My thoughts were as slow and sluggish as my heartbeat was fast.

A hand covered my own and gently guided my wand to point at the floor. I stared at the point that my wand was trained on, before looking up.

"Harry?"

Dumbledore.

The one person I most needed to see and most needed to avoid. He sounded concerned; I told myself that he wouldn't if he knew what I'd done. I had Voldemort's lie to protect me. With Dumbledore so close, I could feel it writhing at the forefront of my mind. False images of Voldemort, Quirrell, and myself flashed before my eyes, and I heard the three of us all speak at once, a dozen words from each mouth in a deafening cacophony to match the kaleidoscope of lies filling my vision.

"Harry?" he repeated. I couldn't see him beyond the pictures planted into my mind, could hardly hear him over the sound of my own voice, of Quirrell's, of Voldemort's.

"Voldemort," I muttered, exhausted guilt lacing my words. It was all the explanation I could give, right then. For Dumbledore, it was enough. Dizziness overcame me before he could speak again.

"Harry!" exclaimed Dumbledore as I stumbled and my vision swam. He grasped my arms and held me upright until my footing was steady again. "I'm taking you to the Hospital Wing. Can you walk?"

I nodded, not trusting my tongue. The cold weight of guilt dug deeper.


	3. Chapter 3

Dumbledore and I reached the Hospital Wing pretty quickly. I had been tripping and stumbling in every direction for most of the way there, until Dumbledore had refused to let my stubbornness continue. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders to steady me, and guided me towards the Hospital Wing.

For a few minutes, I forgot about the events of this catastrophic day. Being looked after like this was unfamiliar for me. Although I had discovered friends who cared for me over the past year, they were always my peers. Dumbledore, on the other hand, as an imposing older man, didn't share the role of brother or sister that Ron and Hermione had taken in my life.

No, Dumbledore was the distant relative; the symbolic head of my new, magical family, but rarely part of it. Here, beside him, I toyed with the idea of getting to know him a little better. I was as comfortable with him as I imagined I would be with an uncle, or a grandfather. With him, I felt safe in a way that I couldn't remember.

Was this how it had felt to be with my parents?

I had no way of knowing, but the longing dreams I'd experienced when locked in my cupboard told me that it was.

I sighed. There was no way that someone like Dumbledore would want to strike up a friendship with an eleven-year-old boy. A wave of loneliness swept over me for an instant, only to be replaced with hope. I still had Voldemort's promise to return my parents. I trusted Voldemort even less than I did Draco Malfoy, but I had no choice but to hope against hope that he had spoken the truth.

I shivered.

"Harry?" asked Dumbledore, looking down at me concernedly.

"Sorry," I muttered. He chuckled, and patted my arm with the hand wrapped around me.

"Don't say sorry," he said. "There's nothing for you to apologize for."

"Sorry," I repeated, and felt tongue-tied and foolish immediately afterwards. Dumbledore simply chuckled again.

A few steps later, we turned a corner to come into the Hospital Wing. The main door to it stood wide open, with a few smaller doors leading off it. I knew that one led to Madam Pomfrey's office, and another led to a potions store-cupboard, but had never seen the inside of the others.

"Ah! Here we are at last. Excuse me a moment, Harry, while I inform Madam Pomfrey of our arrival."

Dumbledore removed the arm from around my shoulder, and for a moment, I experienced a strange pang of loss. He looked at me for a minute before stepping away in the direction of Madam Pomfrey's office. I moved to follow him, but he held up a hand, palm facing me, and fingers outstretched. "No, no, Harry, you take a seat. I'll just be a moment."

Another shiver ran through me. I bit my cheek involuntarily, sending a hot ache across the left side of my mouth, and almost stumbling. I managed to pass it off as a step towards one of the many bedside chairs, but Dumbledore didn't look convinced. He strode towards the door of Madam Pomfrey's office, but didn't actually turn the handle and enter until I'd sat down.

I saw him watching me in the reflection from the shaded window set in Madam Pomfrey's office door. An odd expression flickered across his face as I sat; a mixture of concern and guilt.

The guilt surprised me – what did Dumbledore have to feel guilty about? I supposed that he might have been taking a little of the blame for letting Voldemort into the castle upon himself, but I was the one who'd failed to stop him.

He tried the door handle, and then, upon finding that it was locked, turned to look over his shoulder at me, and then, upon finding the door was locked, turned to look over his shoulder at me, giving me a conspiring wink before snapping his fingers.. A loud click came from the door, and it swung open.

"Good afternoon, Poppy!" greeted Dumbledore cheerfully. From somewhere deeper in the room I heard a startled cry.

"Albus! Goodness, you surprised me there. I..."

Their voices faded away as Dumbledore entered the room, closing the door behind himself, and leaving me with another of his warm smiles and my thoughts.

I dropped my face into my hands and let out a low groan, frustration mingling with guilt so tightly that I could hardly tell where one ended and the other began.

Now, more than even fifteen minutes ago, I needed to keep my lie. Not just to cover my arse, but because Dumbledore wasn't the kind of person I felt as if I could let down. I hardly knew him, and already I loathed the idea of betraying myself to Voldemort as much because he would disapprove as because of who and what Voldemort was.

This inexplicable pressure not to let Dumbledore down seemed far too powerful. It felt similar to the insidiously compelling charisma of Voldemort, who seemed to somehow be so persuasive despite everything I believed in, despite his monstrous features, and the threatening sibilant hiss in which he spoke.

It felt similar, and yet different, too.

I wondered if this was simply what it was like to be around such powerful wizards – if their very presence was so steeped in magic that it projected out from them to ensnare any unwary souls that wandered nearby.

Being near Dumbledore had felt like standing outside on a hot summer's day. I could feel a warmth that had nothing to do with heat coming from the man; an open, accepting, and simple breadth of spirit like the sun on my face. Voldemort, on the other hand...

Something about standing in his presence was exhilarating – although not an experience I longed to repeat.

I shivered again, despite the warmth. Odd how something so dark can happen on a bright summer afternoon. All the best evil happens on a sunny day.

Contrary to Dumbledore's gentle, magnificent presence, Voldemort was an ocean in a storm. He was icy waves towering hundreds of feet in the air, and tempestuous currents threatening to crush me with sheer cold power and charisma. He was force and fury incarnate.

I had seen the ocean before, if only once. It had been on a trip to the beach with the Dursleys. Surprisingly enough, they hadn't tried to leave me with my usual cat-scented old woman of a babysitter– despite Dudley's complaints. I think that there had been a few more, quieter protests from Aunt Petunia, too, but Uncle Vernon had put his foot down, claiming that everybody needs to see the ocean. It was one of very few rare moments when the man had acted charitably towards me. I was gratefully shell-shocked by it for a few hours until, in typical Dursley fashion, the family conspired to shatter my brief pleasure and replace it with bitterness.

Or more accurately, Dudley did, while his parents assisted him through their utter apathy towards my plight.

Over the course of two hours, I built an extravagant sand castle by hand. Dudley messed around a dozen feet away with plastic buckets and spades and tiny flags, making his own - but his was little more than a few upturned buckets of wet sand standing in a group. Mine was a castle. I was more than pleased with my creation – and doubly so when Dudley didn't kick it down.

My triumph waned somewhat when Dudley claimed my sand castle to be the fruit of his own labour, and entered it in a small competition running on the beach that day. It dipped even further when he won it.

It wasn't until we were sitting in the car on our way home that I realized something that brought back some of my pride. It was my castle. Dudley had claimed the prize, but I had been the one who'd really won. The Dursleys may have called me a no-good freak for years, but no-good was good enough to win that competition.

Perhaps this was the first time that I was truly no-good, but I'd learned long ago that it was good enough for me.

I clenched my hands tightly around the arms of the chair. The cold metal dug into my palms enough to hurt, but it didn't bother me. I was too distracted by my own wayward thoughts.

I may have thrown away any pretence of being a good person by giving the Stone to Voldemort, but I would get the chance to see my parents again. I would get what I wanted.

I had never thought myself to be perfect, and now, more than ever before, I had proved it.

But I didn't need to be perfect. I was no-good, and I _needed_to make that good enough. It would be good enough. I would be good enough. There was no longer any other option.

"Good enough," I whispered. The words felt somehow right in my mouth. I repeated them, over and over, savouring the feeling trapped between a mantra of sentiment and taste. "Good enough. Good enough. No-good enough. Enough. Good enough…"

Beyond those words, I remember little of losing consciousness. All I could remember was the determination and drive to keep going, hanging on to my overwhelming sense of adequacy with desperate fervour. Light-headedness bordering on euphoria spilled into me from the words and memories, letting emptiness bleed across my every sense.

Hours later, I was conscious again, and sat upright in bed, facing the headmaster after what had been both the easiest and hardest conversation of the year.

I wasn't able to lie to Dumbledore, yet he had asked for my account of events below the trapdoor. Voldemort told the lies for me, him and Quirrell, with their accursed magic. My treacherous mouth told the affable old man falsehood after falsehood, spinning a horrifically simple web of lies that lay around me like the tightest of bindings. During the conversation, my spirit had cracked a dozen times, and my heart had pleaded with me to confess everything. I hadn't been able to say anything but Voldemort's lies: of how the same power that had protected me as a baby had risen, burning Quirrell, and Voldemort with him, away into ash, and then nothingness. Damn Dumbledore, he believed me!

He stood up and adjusted his half-moon spectacles, surveying me with a sombre look I had rarely seen before. His bright blue eyes seemed a little duller for it. "Remember, Harry," he told me. "It is our choices that make us who we are." A shadow seemed to darken his aged face and his voice was tinted with regret. "You will need your friends now. Keep them close."

He gave me one last penetrating look and then the shadow lifted from his face. "The festivities will begin shortly," he said, his tone reverting to the grandfatherly one I was used to. He smiled at me, and I found that I could breathe again, as if a great constricting weight had been lifted from my chest. "Madam Pomfrey has declared you in good health, if a little tired, and has been generous enough to grant you permission to attend the feast after she donates a final vial of pepper-up potion to the worthy cause of healing Harry Potter." He lowered his voice into a hushed, conspiring whisper.  
"With only the tiniest hint of persuasion from myself."

Beneath the bed covers, I clasped my fingers together and unclasped them again, nervously.

"Thanks, Professor," I mumbled, looking anywhere but at Dumbledore. I didn't dare look him in the eyes in case he saw the guilt and shame that threatened to overwhelm me

He placed a large, warm hand on my shoulder, and my eyes flicked upwards to meet his by reflex.

"Hogwarts is happy to see you well, my boy."

Dumbledore smiled at me one last time and left. I remained in bed for a while, my heart beating furiously as his words echoed over and over again in my mind. Maybe I was becoming paranoid, or maybe my fears were justified, but I did my best to quash the rising panic deep within me. A voice at the back of my mind hammered away at my every thought, shrieking _he knows! He knows!_

But surely if he knew, he'd have confronted me. I told myself that I was just panicking from guilt, but nevertheless, I couldn't shake the lingering feeling that Albus Dumbledore knew something was wrong with my lie.

I stayed there, moping, for what seemed like an age, until I was jolted out of my reverie by a series of startlingly loud bangs outside the room.

Multi-coloured light shone through the keyhole. I sat up fully, staring as a bright blue spark drifted to the floor, changing to a vivid purple before exploding into a cloud of sparkling dust.

Eventually, the door burst open, and a red-haired maelstrom tumbled inwards, to land in a heap on the floor.

"Hah!" crowed an indeterminate Weasley twin. "I told you that we were master lock-pickers!"

Hermione stepped gingerly around the mass of wriggling Weasley bodies, and made a scolding noise at the back of her throat – although I could see a quirk of amusement in the turned-up corners of her lips.

"You said that you were going to pick the lock with a hairpin."

"We did! Didn't we, Fred?"

Slightly more muffled, Fred's voice sounded as if it was coming from the bottom of the heap.

"Yes! Sort of!"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "A firework isn't a hairpin." I smiled at the exasperated tone in her voice. Going by the struggle on her face to avoid laughing, I guessed that it was completely false. Only months ago, I would have struggled to see the humour behind her words. So much had changed that I could scarcely believe it.

"It still worked!" shouted Ron, flailing about in an attempt to disentangle himself. "Oi, Fred! Gerrof me!" With only a few attempts, George managed to stand up, and step away from the heap. He straightened his tie and gave a loud, pompous sniff.

"George! I hope you don't think you're going anywhere like that! Why must you look so scruffy all the time?" exclaimed Fred, managing to stand himself after rolling away one of Ron's legs.

George slapped a hand to his forehead, and let out a slight groan.

"Of course," he said, and promptly untucked his shirt. Fred gave a nod of approval.

I let out a small snort of laughter, drawing everyone's attention.

"Oh, Harry!" shrieked Hermione, rushing over to me. She stopped just by the side of my bed, leaning slightly over it to peer at me. "Are you okay? We've been trying to get in since yesterday, but Madam Pomfrey kept the door locked. She kept saying that you were fine but needed rest, and we were all so worried, and-"

"Let him breathe, Hermione," said Ron, appearing over her shoulder. "You alright mate?"

"Yeah," I said. "You?"

"Yeah."

We grinned at one another. Nothing more needed to be said. I had made many friends at Hogwarts, but my first would always be my best – Ron. It was this simple, wordless understanding that made him my best friend, rather than just a friend. Fred and George jokingly called it _an understanding between men_. We were both close to Hermione, but our friendships with her were  
very different to the one we shared.

Hermione sighed, and muttered under her breath. "_Boys."_

For a time, we pretended that things were normal. It was a good pretence.

What little of the year remained passed in a daze. I could hardly believe what I had done. In the morning, I borrowed a copy of the Daily Prophet, hoping against hope that I wouldn't see news of Voldemort's return, or a hundred deaths of good men and women – deaths that would be my fault. I didn't see that news, but that morning, and every one after that, I woke with my heart in my mouth, dreading that today would be the day that hell broke loose.

I wasn't able to muster the effort to do much more than smile weakly when we won the House Cup. On the train platform, Hagrid was looking for me, but I ducked into the Hogwarts Express, and locked myself into a compartment as soon as I found an empty one. I was too ashamed to face him, or anyone else. I didn't say goodbye to Ron or Hermione.

The train corridor stretched away in front of me; long, narrow, and open. I fled down the carriages, hunting for an empty compartment. Everywhere, there were students. Oh, some were nearly empty, but that single student filling a fraction of the space available was a single student too many. I didn't want to talk. I didn't want to be stared at. And I didn't want my friends.

I was not the person they thought I was.

When they looked at me, they saw Harry Potter, boy hero – regardless of the fact that the most heroic deed I could actually lay claim to was catching a tiny golden ball. I had grown tired of being idolized for something I hadn't done long before now, but, given recent events, I felt more like a villain than a hero.

Villains did not sit and chat with their friends. They sulked in the corner. I had _earned_ my right to sulk in the corner.

I heard all-too-familiar voices coming from the neighbouring carriage.

"No, I haven't seen Potter! Get lost!" exclaimed Malfoy, loudly.

Hermione's shrill voice cut across the general hubbub of the other students chattering aimlessly, hauling luggage onto the train, and shouting their goodbyes.

"Honestly, Draco, we just wanted to know if you'd seen him. There's no need to be so confrontational. Now, have you seen Harry?"

"Are you deaf?"

"Have you _seen_ him?" she demanded again. I stifled the urge to groan. Even when the victim of her nagging was Malfoy, she could annoy me. She could be more tightly-wound than Aunt Petunia, and that was saying something. For the hundredth time, I reminded myself to find her a hobby. Homework didn't count.

"Try looking on the tracks, Granger. I think I saw him right in front of the train, right, Crabbe?"

Crabbe grunted his agreement.

"Maybe under it," said Goyle. His voice, while quiet, was much deeper than the others and carried across the background noise as well as Hermione's.

Hermione gave an affronted sniff. I heard a door close.

Shit. They were moving. I prayed that they wouldn't come any closer, but, to my frustration, I saw the door at the end of my carriage open. I grimaced and ducked inside the nearest compartment, hoping that it wasn't _too_ full.

A tall, dark-haired student I didn't recognize was sitting inside, reading quietly. He looked considerably older than me - fifth year or above, by my estimate. When I barged in, breathing loudly, and dragging my trunk behind me, he gave me an odd, speculative look. Something about him seemed off, but I decided that this was going to be as good an option as any I could find without risking bumping into Ron and Hermione.

The door rattled. I tensed.

Malfoy poked his head through the doorway.

I wasn't sure whether to be grateful that it wasn't one of my friends, or irritated that it was Malfoy. So, naturally, I hexed him.

"_Locomotor mortis_!"

The leg-locker curse wasn't a particularly potent spell, but it was enough to take out Malfoy. A well-aimed snowball would do the same, so I tried not to take too much pride in his surprised squawk.

As his legs were bound together, he fell forwards into the compartment. He managed to catch himself with his hands, preventing a nasty collision of floor and nose that would've deepened the red of the carpet. He swore loudly, and struggled to get to his bound feet. His endeavour was not a success. He succeeded only in wriggling further into the compartment.

I could see the brutish, confused face of Crabbe peering through the doorway, shifting uneasily. He looked as if he wanted to hit me, or perhaps ask what was going on. Unfortunately – for him – Malfoy's fallen form prevented him from entering the compartment.

"Damn it all, Potter! Undo this!"

I snorted. He wouldn't be asking me if his two hulking minions could counter my minor curse. I toyed with the idea of rolling him off the train, and leaving him on the platform until the Hogwarts Express had gone and somebody found him. The notion, I admit, pleased me a great deal.

Before I had a chance to do much beyond entertain happy thoughts of tormenting Malfoy now that he was at the benefit of _my _tender mercies, the older student in the compartment stood. My eyes flicked to his lapel, checking for a prefect badge. There was none.

Looking over his robes, I realized that there was no school crest or house badge. While plain black robes, much like the school ones, the cut was far finer than any of my housemates.

He swept out of the compartment, treading over Malfoy as if he wasn't there.

"Leave," he ordered. Crabbe and Goyle fled.

"Hey!" exclaimed Malfoy. "Who do you think you are? When my father hears of this, he'll have you strung by your ankles and whipped bloody!"

Malfoy's cries were ignored.

Once he stood in the doorway, the older boy snapped his fingers. Malfoy's wand flew from out of his robes and into the other's hand.

"Your father would be ashamed of such a performance, Draco. See that you do not make a habit of being caught so readily by so simple a spell," he said. His voice was cold and cutting and hauntingly familiar, although I couldn't place it.

"Harry," he said. He was still facing away from us. Malfoy spluttered indignantly, but wordlessly. From my seat, I could see his wide, shocked eyes, and paler-than-usual face. Even at so young an age, we both felt a tiny fraction of the shame an older wizard would at losing a wand. For most of a year, Malfoy had been channelling his magic through that wand. It was well on its way to becoming a part of him, and had so easily been lost.

The casual display of such powerful magic was not lost on me. My attention snapped firmly to the stranger in the doorway.

"What?" I asked, beginning to feel uneasy.

"This will let my owl find you. Keep it close."

He tossed a small silvery object over his shoulder. Despite the fact that he hadn't been looking in even remotely my direction, it would have impacted directly against my face had I not snatched it out of the air. Studying it briefly, I saw a small metal sphere engraved with tiny runes.

It was bright and shiny enough to be brand new: this was not some ancient magical artefact that had lain on a dusty shop shelf for decades.

By the time I looked up, the door was closing. Through the window, I saw him tap Draco's wand to the doorknob. A soft click echoed through the small compartment.

"He's locked us in," I said.

"State the obvious again, Potter. Then unlock my legs. And then the damn door!" shouted Malfoy. A note of panic crept into his voice. A red flush spread over his cheeks.

Outside the compartment, I saw the older boy make a tightly controlled but complex gesture with Draco's wand, conjuring a slender twig. He then placed Draco's wand on the sill of the door's window and nodded towards it while looking me in the eyes. The message was clear: when I got out of the compartment, the wand was mine to do with as I wished.

A cold smile spread across his features. He took the conjured twig in both hands.

"Stop staring out the window and unhex me, you oaf!"

"Who is he?" I asked.

"I have no idea! If I did, I'd have his head on a platter for breakfast tomorrow! He took my wand, Potter. I hardly expect someone from your _environment_ to understand what that means. My wand!"

Malfoy continued to bluster as the stranger slowly bent his hands downwards. The twig stretched into a wide arc, and then a tighter one, and then –

_Snap._

Malfoy instantly whitened.

"What was that? Potter. Tell me. _What was that noise?"_

"Calm down, you prat. He only broke-"

"Tell me he didn't break my wand!"

"Oh, shut _up_. It was only a twig."

"It was my wand!" screamed Malfoy. In his anger, he managed to break free from my curse. He scrambled upright, and punched me solidly in the face. I went reeling back across the seat.

Clapping a hand to my burning cheek, I shouted back at him.

"He broke a twig, NOT your wand!"

He stood there, gaping, staring, and speechless. Relief washed over his face. He collapsed heavily onto the seat opposite me.

"Oh," he said, in a small voice.

I took my hand away from my cheek and looked at it. There was a small smear of blood. The inside of my mouth stung. Blood wiped over my fingertip when I touched it to the sore spot on the inside.

And then I hit him back.

He rocked back, stunned, and then threw out a second punch of his own. I ducked and grabbed for his throat in a way that reminded me all too much of Uncle Vernon. I grimaced, but, unwilling to let go, continued to squeeze his irritating throat.

I was forced to let go when he hit me in the stomach, knocking all the air out of my lungs.

I wasn't entirely sure of what happened next. There was a tangled blur of limbs and fists for a while, and then I knocked my head against the wooden baseboards beneath the seats. I sat on the floor, breathing heavily, and watching Malfoy carefully. A pleasantly large bruise decorated one of his eyes.

He climbed up onto the seat, making no move to attack me again.

Eventually, I joined him.

"You can't hit worth shit, Potter," he said at last.

"I don't have a pair of trolls to practice on whenever I feel like it."

"At least keep your thumb outside your fist. You'll only break it if you squeeze it like that every time you throw a punch."

"Right," I said.

We sat in silence for the next few hours, until the witch pushing the trolley of sweets came along.

Draco and I exchanged hopeful looks when we heard her approach – that is to say, I glared at the cushion on his seat, and he raised an eyebrow then began admiring the passing scenery.

The doorknob rattled about for a few seconds, and then she peered in through the doorway.

"Oh my, you seem to have locked yourselves in here somehow! Never mind. I'd leave the door open for the rest of the trip, if I were you, dears. Would you like anything from the trolley?"

We didn't.

Thanks to Draco's averted face as he stared out of the window, she didn't notice anything amiss, either.

After she had gone, I got up and collected Draco's wand from the other side of the door. He stared at it with wide eyes.

I held it out to him, and he slowly reached out a hand and took it.

We didn't look at one another for the rest of the trip.

When the train arrived at the platform, we left through different ends of the carriage.

The Dursleys were waiting on Platform Nine for me. Uncle Vernon grunted a greeting at me. I gave them the same in return. My summer continued in a similar manner until Voldemort came through on his promise.

It was hardly a week into the summer when an owl appeared outside my window, tapping on the glass with a hooked beak. I opened the window to let it in, marvelling at the beautiful creature. It was power and majesty where Hedwig was beauty and grace.

It was night. There was no other time that you could imagine this owl flying. It was a magnificent eagle owl, resplendent in amber eyes and mottled feathers. I reached out with a hand, and stroked its downy wings. The owl pushed itself slightly into my hand, like a cat. I smiled faintly.

Ron couldn't afford an owl like this, and I knew that Hermione didn't own one. When I realized who had sent it, I jerked my hand backwards as if it was a poisonous snake.

Voldemort.

The owl gave a low hoot, and hopped from the windowsill into my room, perching on the lampshade by my bed. Too large for the lamp to support its weight, the owl stretched out its wings for balance, teetering once, and then held out a leg.

A small package wrapped in brown paper and string was nestled in the owl's talons. I took it, tentatively, and then dropped it again as pain burst in my scar, and a flare of magic lit the room in lightless power, sucking in a sharp breath. Cursing Voldemort for the thousandth time, I knelt, and attempted to pick it up warily. The string came undone easily, and a thick gold ring set with a large black stone fell into my hand. The metal was warm, as if it had been worn recently.

Thin lines inscribed on the stone's surface formed a symbol, but I couldn't make out what it was in the lamplight, shaded as it was by Voldemort's owl.

The owl hooted at me, and ruffled its feathers impatiently. I wondered if it was waiting for something – for a reply, or an acknowledgment that I'd received the ring. There was nothing that I could think of to send back with the owl, except maybe the empty package in which the ring had come. I looked into my hand, crinkling the brown paper slightly, and teasing the string out between my fingers.

I fidgeted with it for a good few moments before I spotted something else in the recesses of the paper – a tiny square of folded parchment. I unfolded it, over and over again, until the heavily creased message was revealed.

_A stone for a stone_.

Voldemort was cunning, and evil, and untrustworthy. He'd sent me this ring for a reason, but I couldn't think of anything that it could be – a bribe to join his service, or a twisted compensation for the Philosopher's Stone, perhaps.

Another idea, half-formed, began to grow in the back of my mind. Voldemort had an army of loyal followers. He wouldn't be able to keep them loyal if he betrayed them constantly. Hope rose in my chest. My heart beat faster, and breath caught at the back of my throat. I dared to believe that this was my reward for giving in to his insidious, tantalizing promises.

I jammed the ring onto a finger, pushing it as far down as it would go. Nothing happened. I bit my lip, swallowing disappointment and anger. There was no way that this ring was just a ring. Voldemort had sent it. He claimed that power had to be earned, and I was going to earn this power to see my parents again, if it killed me.

The puzzle of this ring _would_unlock itself. I didn't think that it would have a password, of any kind. That seemed too crude for Voldemort. I pulled my wand out from the back pocket of my jeans, and tapped the stone, to no avail.

I needed to see my parents now, more than ever. I needed to hear their advice; for someone to say that what I had done was okay. It wasn't. I knew that. But I still wanted to hear it, more than anything.

Bile rose from the pit of my stomach, and I sat down heavily on my narrow bed. Voldemort's owl leapt into the air, and spread its wings, gliding down the few feet to the windowsill, and then disappeared outside. As it jumped up, off the lampshade, the lamp teetered, and then fell to crash on the floor. The lamp-stand lay broken in pieces, as did the shattered glass bulb. I sighed. That would be difficult to explain to Aunt Petunia.

Hedwig hooted forlornly as he disappeared, spreading her wings to rattle at the bars of her cage. I gave her a sympathetic look. I knew exactly how she felt. We were both trapped in very similar cages, here at Privet Drive.

"Boy!"

I swore under my breath and rushed to hide the ring.


	4. Chapter 4

So this is a thing. It was a 5000 word longer thing, but my laptop crashed, and I'll be damned if I can rewrite before drinking this entire bottle of whisky

Disclaimer: I am not homeless or dangerous. Anymore.

I sat on the garden bench, aimlessly kicking my heels against the neatly mown grass. The summer had flickered by all too fast; the agonizing mystery of the ring I had been sent burning a hole in my thoughts from where it lay hidden in my desk drawer. For the past week, I had taken up the habit of wearing it. Although it was far too large for my eleven year old finger, it quickly resized itself to fit.  
Magically, you could say.

When he saw me wear it for the first time, Uncle Vernon had hauled it off my finger, demanding to know where I had stolen it from – and accusing me of taking it from Aunt Petunia's jewellery box.

It had promptly expanded to its original size in his hand, beneath his podgy fingers and horrified gaze. He had flung it away as if it had bitten him. There was no question of ownership from then on.  
I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand. The cool black stone set into the ring brought some relief from the summer heat.

As I looked up again, returning to my aimless staring into the hedge, I jerked in surprise. The hedge was staring back. Staring with two large, bulbous eyes. Green eyes. Not the same green as mine, but eyes that were green all over, like horrifying tennis balls.

I jumped to my feet, reaching into my back pocket for my wand.

Uncle Vernon had tried to lock it away with all of my school things at the start of the summer, but the threat of having a pig's tail to match Dudley's had made him think twice. I was allowed my wand on the condition that I never use it.

They were the same terms that the Ministry of Magic gave all school-age wizards, actually. Not that he knew.

A jeering voice sang out behind me.

"I know what day it is!"

I turned to see Dudley waddling across the lawn. By the time I looked back, the eyes had gone. I swore under my breath – a curse I'd learnt from Dudley. He could be a surprisingly well-rounded education, so long as his parents weren't around.

"What?" I replied, hardly paying attention to him as I scoured the hedge for any sight of the creature that had been there.

I was desperate for contact with the Wizarding World. I had needed time to hide away from the shame of my weakness at the end of last year, but that time had passed, and now I was eager to return to the place I belonged. To magic.

"I know what day it is," he repeated. "It's your birthday. And you haven't got any cards. Nobody cares."

"Well done," I muttered, continuing to search for the green eyes.

He squinted, piggy little eyes narrowing in confusion. He wasn't used to being ignored.

"Why are you staring at the hedge?"

"I'm casting a spell on it," I snapped distractedly.

Dudley whitened instantly and stumbled backwards.

"What? Y-you can't! You're not allowed to do that stuff. Dad said so. He said he'll chuck you out of the house! And it's not like you – not like you have anywhere else to go. You haven't got any freak friends who'd take you in!"

I grimaced. He'd hit upon something that had been worrying me for a while. I'd been grateful for the lack of contact for a while, but now, it was beginning to worry me that none of my friends had written.

A bubble of frustration welled up from inside me. I frowned.

"Stop it!" shouted Dudley. I guessed by his panicked squeal that he'd mistaken my frown for a look of concentration.

Pain blossomed in the back of my head. I fell forwards into the hedge.

I lay there in a tangle of twigs and leaves, utterly confused. Dudley stood over me breathing heavily. He had hit me. Anger began to replace my frustration. I clenched my fists. The thick metal of the ring cut into my hand. I felt it warm under my tightened grip.

Dudley looked as if he was about to hit me again, lumbering forwards like a troll, but suddenly he stopped.

"Mum!" he shouted. "He's doing you-know-what!"

He fled.

I lay there a moment longer, and then stood, still dizzy from the blow to my head.

As I stood, something crunched underfoot. I looked down to see grey leaves on the dry soil. Beneath my foot was a grey, crumbling twig. I lifted my foot, and it fell away into dust.

All around me, the formerly pristine green hedge was fading away. I stood in a small ring of dead foliage. Only a few inches away from me, life began to reappear. The hedge had a peculiar mottled effect as uneven specks of death mingled with rich greenery.

I looked about myself in confusion.

And then I decided that it must have been accidental magic. The ring was warm on my finger.

A little shaken, I began to move back inside. Just inside the kitchen, Aunt Petunia stood by the sink, washing the frying pan from breakfast. Dudley sat at the table.

"Mum!" he whined when he saw me. "He was doing it!"

I heard Aunt Petunia sigh, and in a startled moment of realization, I saw that she didn't believe Dudley, but still forced me to duck as she swung a heavy blow at my head from the soapy frying pan.

I blamed Dudley's fist on the back of my head for my slowed reflexes. I didn't manage to duck in time.

Agony exploded from the already raised lump on the back of my head.

I fell to the floor, landing face-down on the tiles. I only just managed to catch myself on my hands and knees.

The room spun.

I clasped a hand to the back of my head and tried to stand. My vision swam worryingly, and I stumbled, grasping the edge of the table for support.

My hand was warm and sticky. I pulled it away.

It was covered in blood.

As I saw my own blood coating my skin, a wave of nausea washed over me. I managed to pull a chair out from underneath the table in time to collapse into it - and then fall straight back out. My head collided with the tiled floor. Everything disappeared in a flash of white-hot pain.

I have no memory of the next few minutes. It was as if a slice of time had been stolen from me, until I suddenly came back into the world of conscious thought, dazed, confused, and propped up on the tiled floor by the arm of a man I didn't know. Fuzzy, muffled sounds filled my ears. I recognized them as words, but couldn't understand them. I looked at the man holding me upright, eventually steadying my own weight, and leaning forwards, off his arm. He wore a strange bright yellow jacket decorated by stripes of a silvery material. Blearily, I stared at and past him, unable to focus. I thought I saw another man dressed in the same manner standing nearby. My vision swam as if I was rocking my head, so I leant against the leg of the table. The cold pressure of wood against my cheek helped bring the world back somewhat, although my vision continued to swim unevenly. Somehow, the notion that my head was still despite my wandering sight managed to worry me more than the situation I was in.

Somewhere at the back of my mind, I registered the uniform and guessed that Aunt Petunia had called an ambulance.

Throughout the ordeal, I didn't feel anything in the way of worry. Only disorientation and a painful throbbing ache pierced through the stupor I was in, until at last the paramedic's voice became clear enough to comprehend.

"Harry, do you know where you are?"

I said yes. Or, if I'm honest, I mumbled something vaguely positive and attempted to nod.

"Do you know where you are?" he repeated. I pushed my cheek away from the welcome coolness of the table leg, and looked him in the eye. And then wavered, and looked him resolutely in the knee.

"The Dursleys'," I said.

"Where? Harry, you're at home."

"Privet Drive."

"Our name is Dursley," said Aunt Petunia. Her voice sounded odd; panicky and flustered. I couldn't see her.

"How did you say this happened?" asked the other man in the background.

"He-he fell," she stammered.

"How did that happen?" he asked. A stupid, petty voice inside me clamoured to speak up and point the blame, but I knew that nothing good would come of such an accusation. Dudley saved me the trouble with his own idiocy.

"'cause he forgot how to take a hit after a year at that freak school! Dad said-"

Aunt Petunia cut him off with a sharp rebuke. I jerked my head to stare at her, startled. I'd never heard her scold him before.

The rest of the day passed in a daze. Upon the paramedic's advice of plenty of rest and the suggestion to lie down, Aunt Petunia had insisted that I spend the day lying on the couch, watching television. Dudley spent most of the afternoon playing on his computer in the corner of the room, until Aunt Petunia asked him to turn the volume down a bit – something else I'd never heard her do before. He complained that she was spoiling the game and stomped upstairs.

"Harry, could you go to your room?" asked Aunt Petunia all of a sudden. I didn't respond at first, confused as I was by the way she had asked, rather than ordered me to disappear. For weeks, the Dursleys had been drilling into me the instructions for tonight: go to my room, make no noise, and pretend that I don't exist. "I'll bring you your dinner in a bit. After your –" she paused for a moment. "Fall, I don't think sitting at the table will make you feel very well."

I did as she asked silently, and began to wait the night out. The sound of Uncle Vernon's car pulling up outside sounded a few minutes later.

There was a creature in my room when I arrived. I recognized it, or at least part of it. It was the creature from the garden hedge. The same oversized eyes stared at me, protruded in a most unsettling manner from its head, and all around made me feel uncomfortable. The creature blinked owlishly at me. Its eyelids rose over the top of eyeballs spilling too far forward, curved over their tops, and closed on the lower lids with an uneven seam. The lids of the left eye met far higher than the right ones did, and the right eye didn't quite close all the way, leaving a hole through which I could see a sliver of green.

I had green eyes. My mother's. They were one of the only things about my appearance I liked - they had a brightness and life to them that spoke of more than my shabby clothes and messy hair. Some of the other students at Hogwarts had eyes like mine, in different colours. Dumbledore's eyes shone brighter than any of theirs. It made me wonder if, perhaps, this vibrancy spoke of the magic nestled inside a person.

The sight of bright green eyes belonging to an obviously magical creature would ordinarily have made my day. Desperate as I was for any contact with a world free of linoleum and bleach, I would have overlooked the grubby tea-towel that served as the creature's clothes. I would have overlooked its outgrown fingernails, hooked and ragged like the talons of a diseased bird. I would have even looked beyond the fact that this thing was in my bedroom.

But my head was aching, I was still dizzy and confused and, because of Aunt Petunia's peculiar behaviour after the paramedics left, I'd spent the day in a half-aware daze instead of my usual cathartic seething in a post-Dursley event. That is to say, I'd been sitting on my arse instead of sulking, so I was still fairly annoyed.

All this meant that I didn't stare at the intruder with wide-eyed wonder. I didn't see kinship in its magic green eyes. I saw how repulsively mawkish the thing looked. I saw that it was deformed, and unseemly, and not so much the colour of magic as it was the colour of pestilence.

There was only one thing I could do.

"Get out," I snapped. The creature's eyes widened further. I could see the engorged blood vessels poking through at the edge of its eyes, pulsing under the surface like great grey slugs mired in putrescent filth.

"Dobby is sorry for the intrusion, Harry Potter sir, but..."

I grimaced to hear it speak. The voice was that of a child, but strangely warped. I wondered if this was the tragic victim of Voldemort's dark magic in the war – perhaps a muggleborn he'd decided to deal with before they got to Hogwarts. Then my head throbbed, and I discarded the thought as ludicrous. The throbbing continued as I looked at Dobby's ugly face, and I decided that I didn't care.

"Dobby? Is that your name?" I asked. Dobby nodded vigorously, and yelped loudly in agreement. I winced at the high volume, and outright flinched at the high pitch.

"Oh yes sir, Dobby is Dobby's name, and Dobby came here to warn Master Harry Potter that he is in grave danger."

Dobby was right, I mused, as I stared at him. If Uncle Vernon came upstairs and saw his freak chatting with another, freakier freak, he'd be liable to turn puce and repeat Aunt Petunia's earlier blow of the frying pan. He probably wouldn't bother with the frying pan, but I didn't think he'd bother with the ambulance either. My head ached, and I wanted desperately to lie back down. This all seemed like some stupid joke. I wouldn't put it past Malfoy to pay off this weird gremlin-thing to come bother me.

Voices were just barely audible through the floorboards. I counted myself lucky that the Dursleys' guests hadn't arrived yet, but even so, there was no way I could drag Dobby downstairs and shove him out the door without them noticing.

"My wand," I muttered to myself. "Where did I put my wand?" I looked around my room, patted every pocket I could find, and began opening drawers.

"Master Harry's wand is over here, sir. Dobby has it!"

My heart leapt for a moment. I looked up furiously, expecting to see the creature holding my wand on me – and saw very nearly what I expected. Dobby was holding my wand out fearfully, grasping it by the wrong end, and between two fingers, as if he was afraid it might bite him. I wished that it would for a moment, but unfortunately I couldn't transfigure so much as a guard-Chihuahua to chase him away.

"Give it to me," I demanded. The wretched creature complied, pushing the handle neatly into my palm. My fingers closed around it. Dobby was still holding onto the tip when the spell struck. "Petrificus totalus."

He went rigid in an instant. I was struck by the similarities between him and Neville for a moment as he fell backwards – gullible, more than a little pathetic, and fairly weird looking. As soon as I had that thought, I scolded myself for it. For all his faults, Neville was a friend. No need to think ill of him because I was in a rotten mood. The hex had reminded me of him, that was all, I told myself guiltily.

I didn't feel guilty for hexing Dobby, though.

His skin was sticky under my fingers as I pulled him up again. I hoped that it was just dirt, and not some kind of goblin-sweat-poison. Dobby looked a bit like a goblin. I wondered if he was a lesser breed of some kind, or a similar species. He couldn't be a troll. Too small. Too ugly. Maybe he was half goblin, half troll. Now that was a truly horrifying thought.

"What are you?" I asked him idly, opening the door to the cupboard. His eyes flicked about wildly, unblinking. "Oh, right." I laughed.

"Alright, Dobby, here's what's going to happen," I said. "I can't afford to get any more on Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia's bad side, so I can't have you scampering and shrieking around, especially not tonight. There's no way I could sneak you outside without them noticing, so I've got to hide you in here until they're asleep, then I'll take you downstairs and remove the hex, okay? Then you can run back home to whoever put you up to this, Malfoy, or-" I broke off, seeing a frantic twitch in Dobby's eyes. "Huh. Malfoy, then? Thought so. Look, it'll only be a few hours. Sorry. Be happy I'm not just throwing you out the window and locking it after."

Dobby's eyes twitched frantically. I shoved him into the cupboard, where he fell stiffly onto a heap of my socks. One of my shirts, a particularly vile plaid one that had once been Dudley's, spun gently to cover his face and torso. It was a nice improvement. I paused for a moment, looking at the awful patterned fabric covering Dobby. An idea struck, and I pulled another shirt from the pile of dirty ones in y laundry basket to drape over Dobby's legs. The oddly shaped lump was pretty visible, but it might pass for a pile of laundry at a cursory glance. Or so I hoped. It was pretty unlikely that anyone would have a chance to see inside my cupboard tonight, anyway. This was just a precaution.

Dobby lay there, petrified and covered in my dirty clothes.

I shut the door in his face.

The next few hours were quite pleasant. I lay on my bed, thinking of nothing very much and polished my wand. I hadn't taken very good care of it in my first year; it had been covered in grubby fingerprints and bits of nondescript grime. I resolved to take better care of it in future. This summer had reminded me of how much I needed magic in my life, and Dobby had reminded me that some kinds of magic were more valuable than others.

I glanced over at the blocky grey alarm clock which sat on my bedside table. The hands pointed a little past ten. This was around the time I'd expect the Dursleys to go to bed, but the Masons were still downstairs. By the booming laughs echoing up every now and then, Uncle Vernon was being generous with his drink. I guessed that he was generous in sharing it with the Masons, too, because they were still enduring his company.

Dobby remained thankfully uneventful. I had been checking on him every half hour or so since petrifying him. Even with Uncle Vernon's laughter echoing inside my skull whenever he decided that he'd said something particularly witty, my headache had subsided somewhat, and my mood had improved. Mostly I was just glad that nothing had gone wrong. I was also pleased that the spell had lasted so long as this.

"Potter!"

I jumped halfway out of my skin at the sound of my name. Uncle Vernon's voice was still loud and obnoxious, both with drink and his own charming personality. He wasn't shouting at me, though. Just talking, incredibly loudly, to the Masons.

"Yes, Harry Potter, our nephew. Had an accident today and knocked himself silly. Gave our Pet a fair turn, didn't he?" I couldn't hear what Petunia's reply was, only the softer murmur of her voice. I snorted derisively and wondered whether he was lying to the guests, she had lied to him, or they were all lying to each other. She's probably told him what had happened, I imagined. If she'd tried to cover it up, Dudley would have eventually come out with it, as soon as he saw a way to get something out of it. There was only one person in this house stupid enough to trust him, and it wasn't Aunt Petunia. Not that it made much difference, with the way she pandered to him and pretended not to see through his poorly orchestrated lies. "Well of course," continued Vernon, "he's upstairs resting. Wouldn't do for him to get overexcited after that. You know how he gets when he's overexcited, don't you Pet? 'course, he'd probably have had to stay upstairs anyway. Very excitable boy, that one. Why, we couldn't even take him to the zoo without things getting out of sorts. Just doesn't seem to do well with people – you know the type, Mr Mason? Yes, of course. We've all met a few in our time. Damn shame, but some people just can't seem to behave in a civil fashion no matter how hard you try to get them sorted."

I lay back and closed my eyes, trying to block out what I was hearing. A load of nonsense for the most part, I knew, but some unease rose within me. It was true that I didn't seem to get along very well with most people. Even at Hogwarts, most of the people who liked me seemed to have been friends with my parents first. Uncle Vernon broke through my thoughts before they could turn too melancholy.

"Dudders even tried to get him playing with all his friends – popular boy, Dudley, takes after his father that way, very personable – but the boy wouldn't have any of it. No, never wanted to join in. Seemed to spend half his time running away from the other boys when they tried to get him to play along. Damnedest thing, isn't it?"

I rolled my eyes and slammed the pillow over my head. What he was saying wasn't entirely untrue. I did spend half my time running away from Dudley's gang. He didn't mention that the game they were playing was called Harry Hunting, though. If he even knew. Doting from a distance, so they didn't have to see too closely what Dudley was up to. That was the Dursleys in a nutshell.

With a groan, I heaved myself off the mattress and stomped across to my rickety desk. I pulled out my Charms textbook and began flicking through pages, hunting for a silencing charm. By the time I found it, my teeth were gritted and I desperately wanted to throw something at the wall. But I restrained myself. That wouldn't exactly make Vernon be any quieter. I mouthed the incantation silently and practiced the wand movements a few times.

The diagrammed figure spun through the motion with much more elegance than I could achieve, even though it was just ink enchanted into the shape of a disembodied arm. Still, I wasn't so out of practice that I couldn't get the movements right.

I flicked my wand just so, pointed it at the floor in the general direction of where Uncle Vernon was, as best as my ears could tell, and muttered "silencio".

Nothing happened.

Frustrated, I kicked the floorboard that I'd aimed the spell at. My foot bounced off it soundlessly, not making me feel better in the slightest, and only giving me another ache. Then I paused. I kicked it again. No sound. Mr Mason said something, indistinct, but audible, and Vernon howled in laughter. I stamped on the board, hard. Silent.

I rushed back over to the textbook and re-read the description of the charm. Oh.

The cupboard where I'd stashed Dobby was right next to the desk. I tapped it with my foot, making a tiny thud, then cast the silencing spell on the door. I kicked it again, gently. No sound.

Well. This would be useful.

A fresh layer in my plan to smuggle Dobby out firmly cemented in my mind, I flopped back onto my bed. This time I brought the charms book with me. The time passed quickly enough as I rifled through the pages, reading the descriptions of a few spells with attention-grabbing names. I even tried a few out; the colour-change charm, the summoning charm, and a few others. I couldn't get any of them to work, though I would swear I managed to get the carpet a few shades lighter.

My clock read quarter to two before I felt safe enough to risk opening my bedroom door. The Masons had left about an hour ago, and I'd heard the Dursleys fuss about tidying for a while, then stomp off to bed. It wasn't exactly hard to keep track of when Dudley or Vernon were moving up or down the stairs.

I opened the door. Dobby fell forwards, landing on my knees. His pointed nose rested on my calf. I pulled my leg back, shaking it slightly to dislodge him, and he fell onto the carpet. The silencing charm had long since worn off, so it made a soft thump.

With the tip of one foot, I rolled him over onto his back. I knelt, pressed my hand over his mouth to stop him from shouting out, and whispered "finite". He leapt up immediately. Even kneeling, I was still taller than him, so I tackled him back down to the ground, wrested one arm out from under him, pointed my wand at the back of his head, and silenced him.

Then I let go, because I'm a nice guy.

And there was nowhere he could go but out the window, seeing as how I blocked his route to the door. I wouldn't have minded him jumping out himself, but he was oddly restrained compared to his hyperactivity earlier in the evening. A few hours shut in the dark unable to move had done him the world of good.

Gesturing with my wand, I stepped to one side.

"Go on," I whispered. "Downstairs." Dobby gestured frantically to his mouth, opening and closing it frantically and waving his hands about his head. I sighed, frustrated. "Yes, fine, I'll take it off as soon as you're outside."

He didn't give any sign of having heard. I sighed again.

"If you don't do as I tell you, I'll hex you again and carry you out. Now move!" These last words were hissed as loudly as I dared. Dobby finally got the hint and fled.

The silencing charm didn't extend to his footsteps. I flinched as the top stair creaked under his meagre weight, then stabbed my wand twice at his ankles, muttering silencio each time.

There was still a light in the living room when we passed it. I reached my hand through the doorframe and flicked the switch off, then pulled on the front door handle. Thankfully it wasn't locked. The handle turned with a soft click. I pushed the door open.

Behind me, in the living room, there was another click.

Light flooded out over the porch. I pushed Dobby quickly to one side, out of sight, and stuffed my wand into my pocket. In the middle of the puddle of light, my shadow stretched out before me.

Uncle Vernon's bulk filled the doorway. He stared at me, unusually silent, with fists clenched. Unwillingly, my eyes were drawn to his fists. I pulled my gaze away, but it slipped back down. He had a thick gold ring on his thick red thumb. His hands were huge. I swallowed nervously.

"You should be in bed, boy," he said. I flinched when he opened his mouth, expecting to be roared at, but his voice was quiet. There was no emotion in his words. It made me more uncomfortable than his shouting did. This wasn't him. He'd have rare bursts of good moods, from time to time, when I'd hear him laugh, and see him smile. In rare, rare occasions he would even smile at me, albeit in the way someone might smile at a rat they had temporarily forgotten was vermin. The ring I had received from Voldemort was on my finger. I had taken to wearing it. I'm not sure why. Somehow, it felt right to have it there. I had begun to feel uneasy whenever I wasn't wearing it. Uncle Vernon glanced at it, but made no comment. His expression didn't change, either. He didn't really have one.

He grabbed me by the shoulder and wrenched me roughly into the house. Despite the hushed tones he was speaking with, the roughness of the shove was perfectly normal. The familiarity almost put me at ease, but I was immediately unbalanced again by stumbling over the doorstep, nearly falling.

"Boy," he said, facing away from me, and out into the night. My heart was in my throat. Could he see Dobby? He didn't say anything else.

"Yes, Uncle?" I asked, eager to be away.

"Be a good lad and pass me Dudley's Smeltings stick." The stick, which Dudley was very fond of, stood in a meticulously arranged umbrella stand by the door. I did as he asked without thinking. "There we go," he said softly. "Off to bed now."

I scurried away, grateful to have escaped punishment, but as I reached the top of the stairs, a sudden fear gripped me. I looked back. I wished that I hadn't.

Uncle Vernon was holding a squirming Dobby in the air by the back of his filthy pillowcase. Almost immediately after I'd looked back, he dropped Dobby to the floor, rubbing his hand on his trousers with a look of distaste. Whether it was touching Dobby or the grime on the pillowcase which caused such disgust, I have no idea. Dobby scrambled to his feet and made to bolt away, but Uncle Vernon was too quick, and planted a heavy boot on his back. Dobby was pinned to the ground. Still silenced, he wriggled and squirmed fruitlessly. Uncle Vernon raised the stick above his head.

Each movement was punctuated by a dull thud. I couldn't watch. I couldn't turn away.

A cat yowled in the distance.

I ran down the stairs, back out to the porch. I don't know how I could have stopped him, or even if I was going to try. He dropped Dobby's unmoving corpse on the ground and prodded it with his foot. This time, I really did fall over the doorstep. I fell on my side, scraping my hand, arm, and knee on the paving slabs outside the front door. Blood welled up everywhere. Tiny cuts, but even so, I was bleeding more than Dobby. I hauled myself to my feet, and walked to where Dobby had fallen. The ominous figure of Vernon Dursley was a threatening presence next to me. I couldn't bear to look at him, but his shape on the edge of my vision made me feel like somebody was holding a knife to my throat. It was difficult to breath. My chest was tight.

He wasn't bleeding at all, in fact. But his entire head was misshapen, in a way other than his odd elf features. Part of his skull had caved in, and as I saw Uncle Vernon jostle the body, things moved inside his head in a way I knew they were not supposed to. I wanted to be sick.

"I hope that wasn't your homework," said Uncle Vernon. "Clean it up, and don't make more of them." There was a strange note in his voice. From anyone else, I'd think it was regret.

I glared at him, incredulous. He thought that I'd made Dobby? That he was some kind of spell? This was not the first time he'd leapt to ridiculous conclusions through ignorance, but it was certainly the strangest. The astonishment at his assumption helped to hold the horror at bay. I didn't really feel it, not then, when things felt so unreal.

The night air was cool, but my cheeks felt as if they were hot, burningly so. Bile rose in my stomach. I saw Uncle Vernon shift, and reach a hand out towards me. I flinched away, and hurriedly crouched down next to Dobby.

I grabbed his spindly arms in an attempt to pull him out of sight of the street, but touching his clammy skin made a shudder of revulsion run through me. I froze, staring at the backs of my hands, which clung onto a dead elf.

The blood from one of my cuts had slowly dripped down to the ring.

I was too numb from the events of the night to feel any shock when the ring drank my blood. It sank into the surface of the stone set in it, and yet more blood poured out of my arm. It was drawn in a tiny, constant rivulet as I watched. I could feel it, or perhaps the magic which caused it, tugging, pulling, as it was sucked out of my veins. A sense of power built, as if the air pressure had suddenly increased. The smell of ozone filled the air, and I was overwhelmed by the sensation that there was a thunderstorm in the garden, and the ring was its epicentre. But the air was still.

And then Dobby was not.

His eyes opened. They were grey.

My hands were still gripping his arm when he sank his teeth into me.


End file.
